
Class J2-Sil^ 
Book 



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Copyright N^. 



COPXRIGHT DEPOSrr. 



THE IMPORTANCE AND VALUE 
OF PROPER BIBLE STUDY 

R. A. TORREY 



I 



THE IMPORTANCE AND 

VALUE OF PROPER 

BIBLE STUDY 

How Properly to Study 
and Interpret the Bible 

BY 

R. A. TORREY 

DEAN OF BIBLE INSTITUTE, LOS ANGELES 

Author of "The Real Christ" "The Fundamental 

Doctrines of the Christian Faith" "What the 

Bible Teaches" "How to Work for 

Christ" etc. 




NEW Xar^ YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 






Copyright, ig2l, 
By George H. Damn Company 



0CT2i m\ 

\ 

Printed in the United States of America 
0)CI.A624868 



INTRODUCTION 

There is a great and constantly growing interest 
in the study of the English Bible in these days. 
But very much of the so-called study of the Eng- 
lish Bible is unintelligent and not fitted to produce 
the most satisfactory results. The author of this 
book already has a book entitled ^^How to Study 
the Bible for Greatest Profit,'' but that book is 
intended for those who have much time to put 
into thorough Bible study. 

The present book is intended, first of all, to 
impress men with the Importance and Value of 
Bible Study; secondly, to show busy men and 
women how to get the most out of their Bible 
Study ; thirdly, to set forth the fundamental prin- 
ciples of correct Biblical Interpretation. 

The book really consists of four sermons deliv- 
ered to the members of my own church and con- 
gregation in Los Angeles. There were not a few 
children in the congregation, but they were all 
interested, long as the sermons were, and seemed 
to grasp the main points of the sermons. So I am 
confident the book will be helpful even to those 
who have but little education. Some in the con- 
gregation who are themselves in educational work, 
both secular and religious, have expressed their 



vi INTEODUCTION 

appreciation of the help received from the 
sermons. 

If one desires to go into the subject more thor- 
oughly it is suggested that he secure the author's 
book already mentioned, ^^How to Study the Bible 
for Greatest Profit." This book will probably be 
followed soon by one upon the most fruitful 
methods of thorough Bible Study. 

E. A. TOEEEY. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTKB PAGE 

I The Importance and Value of Bible Study . 11 
II How Properly to Study the Bible .... 28 

III How TO Interpret the Bible so as to Find Its 

True Meaning 55 

IV The Seven Great Promises op God for the Bible 

Student and Soul- Winner 91 



Vll 



THE IMPORTANCE AND VALUE 
OF PROPER BIBLE STUDY 



THE IMPORTANCE AND VALUE 
OF PROPER BIBLE STUDY 

CHAPTER I 

THE IMPOETANCE AND VALUE OF BIBLE STUDY 

"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the un- 
godly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat 
of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in 
His law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a 
tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit 
in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he 
doeth shall prosper." — Psalm 1:1-3. 

Our subject this morning is '^Tlie Importance 
and Value of Bible Study, ^' You will find the text 
in Psalm l;l-3 — ^'Blessed is the man that walketh 
not in the counsel of the ungodly y nor standeth 
in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the 
scornful. But his delight is in the law of the 
Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and 
night. And he shall he like a tree planted by the 
rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in 
his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and 
whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." 

There has, perhaps, never been an age that set 
such great store by study as that in which we now 
live. The unfortunate thing about it is that so 

11 



12 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

much of the study in our day, both by children and 
adults, is devoted to books and subjects in which 
there is little or no profit.! A large portion of 
every year in our schools and colleges is practi- 
cally wasted. Time is squandered upon the purely 
speculative, the uncertain, the unprofitable, the 
unessential, the unproductive, the irrelevant and 
the transitory. Many practical business men think 
that the sooner the boy or girl who is just out of 
school or college forgets half of what they imagine 
they have learned, the better. The most profitable 
of all study is wisely ordered Bible study. Its 
value is incalculable. It is beyond all comparison 
more profitable than any other study. It is the 
one superlatively profitable study. 

Possibly some of you may be disposed to ques- 
tion that statement ; so I will give you two reasons 
why Bible study is the one superlatively profitable 
study, why Bible study towers far above all other 
studies in importance and value. 

7. Because of What the Bible Is 

First of all, Bible study towers far above all 
other studies in importance and value because of 
what the Bible itself is, 

1. In the first place, the Bible is the peerless 
masterpiece of clear, pure, chaste, forceful, beau- 
tiful, exalted English. Nothing can match it in 
purity, smoothness, clearness, force, and sublimity 
of expression. That admits of no question. AU 



VALUE OF BIBLE STUDY 13 

intelligent, well-read and candid infidels acknowl- 
edge that. Prof. Phelps, at the head of the Eng- 
lish Department at Yale, contended some years 
ago that candidates for admission to American 
Universities should have their qualification for 
admission, as far as their knowledge of English 
was concerned, tested by one book alone, the Bible. 
And Harvard University has announced in the 
past few weeks that hereafter every student be- 
fore graduation must pass an examination in the 
English Bible. Because of Harvard's well-known 
theological position and also from the fact that 
they seem to emphasize the Eevised Version, it is 
evident that they have in view principally the fact 
that the Bible is the great English master-piece. 
Last Tuesday I received from G. P. Putnam's 
Sons of New York and London, a book for exami- 
nation — a dictionary of 6,000 choice and effective 
phrases. In this book (just published), time and 
again, page after page, every phrase was taken 
from the Bible, without variation or addition. 
Here and there were scattered phrases taken from 
Shakespeare, but on subject after subject whole 
pages of telling phrases were consecutively taken 
from the Bible. Why? Because this book of 
phrases was prepared by a master hand at Eng- 
lish diction and he knew where to find the most 
illuminating and most telling phrases. Every 
man and woman should saturate themselves with 
the very words of the Bible if for no other reason 
than to clarify, tone up and invigorate their Eng- 



14 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

lish diction. When Henry Stanley, the great news- 
paper writer, made his second tour of exploration 
into the heart of Africa, he took only one book 
with him, the Bible. In its study he beguiled and 
improved many lonely hours, and when he 
emerged, after having been shut up with one book 
for so many years, it was noticed that Henry 
Stanley had acquired by absorption an entirely 
new English style, a far more forceful style, Bible 
English. It is said that a newspaper report of a 
paragraph from one of Mr. Moody's sermons was 
handed to Max Miiller, the great philologist, and 
he was asked what he thought of it. He asked, 
*^Who wrote thatT' And the reply was made, 
**D. L. Moody." ^^I do not wonder then at his 
power,'' Max Miiller exclaimed. ^^That is one 
of the finest pieces of clear, strong, pure Anglo- 
Saxon I have ever read." But where had Mr. 
Moody learned this vigorous English! From the 
only book he thoroughly knew and daily devoured, 
the Bible. 

2. In the second place, the Bible is the book 
that presents to us the most profound, the most 
coherent J the most consistent , the most comprehen- 
sive, the most complete, the most perfectly bal- 
anced, the most certain, the loftiest and the most 
enduring system of philosophy ever discovered, 
I say ^^ discovered" instead of ^'devised" ad- 
visedly; for man could never have devised the 
philosophy found in this book; man simply dis- 
covered the philosophy which God had revealed 



VALUE OF BIBLE STUDY 15 

in the Book. Time and again through the cen- 
turies men grown wise in their own conceit, and 
having only a ludicrously fragmentary knowledge 
of the Book upon which they ventured to sit in 
judgment, have assayed to ridicule the Bible's 
philosophy regarding God and man and redemp- 
tion and duty and eternity. But always in the 
ultimate outcome the philosophy of the would-be 
critics has dissolved and disappeared, but the 
philosophy of the Bible has withstood unscathed 
the storms of centuries. Philosophies, empires, 
schools of thought have passed away, but the 
words of this Book have not passed away. (Matt. 
24;35.) The philosophy of this Book has proven 
imperishable, and as good for 1921 A. D. as for 
95 A. D. In view of this undeniable fact is it 
not evident that this is the most important and 
invaluable of all books to study? Do not waste 
your time studying the soap bubbles of man's 
iridescent speculation that may be beautiful but 
soon burst and leave nothing but a nasty, dank, 
greasy feeling behind, but study the Eternal Kock 
of this Book that is rich with real gold. 

3. In the third place, the Bible is the book that 
offers to us the purest, loftiest, most complete 
and absolutely dependable syst&in of ethics ever 
known. Systems of moral philosophy have ap- 
peared throughout the centuries and chiliads, 
from Zeno to Herbert Spencer, only to disappear, 
but all really honest seekers after thorough-going 
and complete righteousness, bow to the imperish- 



16 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

able durability of the ethics of the Bible. And 
even those who clamor hysterically for us to give 
up the Virgin Birth of our Lord, the resurrection 
of His very body from the dead and all the mira- 
cles, the Deity of our Lord, His atoning, substi- 
tutionary death, and others of the most distinctive 
of the doctrinal teachings of the Book, neverthe- 
less themselves cry **Let us keep the ethics of 
the Bible. They are not only unsurpassed but ab- 
solutely unequaled." The most important thing 
to know is, how to live; not how to live physi- 
cally, but how to live morally. If that is so then 
the most important book for all of us to know is 
the book that tells us that as no other book tells 
us. 

4. In the fourth place, the Bible is the one and 
only book that has never been outgrown or super- 
seded. I had occasion last summer, in breaking 
up our home in Montrose, Pa., to go over some of 
the books I studied, yes, dug into with many hard 
hours of intellectual toil, at preparatory school 
and at Yale. There was not one of them of any 
present value to my children or grandchildren. 
They had all been outgrown or superseded ; other 
books have taken their place. But this Book has 
not been superseded. No University professor on 
earth can suggest some other book to take the 
place of this Book. Some venture to say **We 
need a new Bible," but where is itf Why do not 
they bring it out? When an especially callow and, 
therefore daring member of this crew does at- 



VALUE OF BIBLE STUDY 17 

tempt a new Bible it is only **a shorter Bible*'; 
that is, the old Bible with parts left out that made 
him uneasy in his sin, or his self-righteousness 
and self-sufficiency. No! No! no! Any one who 
has a modicum of real, healthy common sense 
knows that you cannot outgrow or supersede the 
Bible. And we can safely leave those who want 
to get out ^^a new Bible '* to sit and twiddle their 
thumbs along with the other lunatics who are 
working on a *' perpetual motion" machine. This 
all being true, and eighteen centuries of unvary- 
ing history of human thought demonstrate that it 
is true, can there possibly be any other study so 
important and so permanently profitable as the 
study of this, the one and only Imperishable 
Booh? 

5. Once more, the Bible is the Word of God, 
That needs no demonstration. Some of the things 
I have already said this morning prove it, if yon 
will only think them through. And I have proven 
it again and again from this platform. Other 
books tell us what men suppose; the Bible tells 
us what God knows. Other books tell us what 
other men, almost as foolish as ourselves, specu- 
late; this Book tells us what an infinitely wise 
God, Who made us and all things, and conse- 
quently knows all things, has inerrantly revealed. 
If you had two books on the subject, one by the 
one master thinker on that subject, the other by 
a third-rate tutor in a fourth-rate college, which 
would you study most? And will you study most 



18 VALUE OF PROPER BIBLE STUDY 

the Book of God, the Book of the infinitely "wise, 
omniscient God, or the book of some little 6x9 
human brain — ^that is larger than any hmnan 
brain as compared with the infinite capacity of the 
mind of the great Jehovah, the Eternal I AM. 

II. Because of What the Bible Does 

Bible study towers above all other studies in 
importance and value not only because of what 
the Bible itself is, but also because of what the 
Bible does. 

On this I cannot dwell as I would like. The 
full exposition of this line of thought would afford 
more than enough material for a whole sermon 
by itself. Let me select a few of the more vital 
points. 

1. First of all, the Bible properly studied 
makes men wise unto salvation. The great master 
apostle, Paul, writing to a zealous young bishop, 
his convert and most trusted coadjutator, says in 
2 Tim. 3 :13-15 : **But evil men and impostors shall 
wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being de- 
ceived. But continue thou in the things which 
thou hast learned and hast been assured of, know- 
ing of whom thou hast learned them; and that 
from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, 
which are able to make thee wise unto salvation 
through faith which is in Christ Jesus. ' ' This is 
tremendous endorsement of the superlative im- 
portance of Bible study, and every word of it is 



VALUE OF BIBLE STUDY 19 

true. This Book does make men wise with the 
wisdom that is golden, the wisdom that brings 
eternal salvation. No other book in all literature 
does it with the certainty and celerity and com- 
pleteness with which this Book does it. No one 
can study this Book aright, no matter how ig- 
norant he may otherwise be, without becom- 
ing possessed of that priceless wisdom that 
means eternal life. Eternal life is found in know- 
ing God and His Son, Jesus Christ (John 17:3). 
And no other book has the power to make us 
acquainted with God and with His Son, Jesus 
Christ, that this Book has. ' I have known great 
philosophers and great men of science and great 
literary luminaries, who did not know God, just 
because they had not studied and, therefore, did 
not know their Bibles. They knew rocks and 
flowers and the entrails of frogs, and the planets 
and the comets and the stars, and men's books, 
but they did not know the one Book and, there- 
fore, they did not know the God who made the 
rocks and the flowers and the stars; and, there- 
fore, they were lost, eternally lost, for all their 
knowledge of other things. On the other hand, 
I have known uncultured people, almost illiterate 
people, washerwomen and such like, for example, 
who had studied and, therefore, did know the 
Bible, and, therefore, they knew more of the wis- 
dom that really counts, the wisdom that spells 
salvation, in five minutes, than these learned pro- 
fessors knew in their whole lifetime. Oh, study 



20 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

the Book that brings eternal life, make it in your 
own experience '*the implanted word, which is 
able to save your souls'' (James 1:21 E. V.). 

2. In the second place, the Bible so makes 
known Jesus Christ as to lead any one who studies 
it OtS he ought, to believe vn Jesus as the Christ, 
the Son of God and so to obtain eternal life m 
His name. That is what John himself says in 
John 20:31 E. V. His words are: ** These are 
written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the 
Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may 
have life in His name." Is there anything else in 
all the world so valuable as eternal life? Is there 
any other study for one moment comparable in 
importance and value to the study that brings us 
eternal life? In former years I had hay fever 
severely. Every September for three weeks or 
more I could not lie down to sleep, or even stay 
in the house at night. I would go off by myself 
every night where I would not disturb any one 
else, and all the night through would almost rup- 
ture blood vessels by spasms of coughing. I saw 
advertised a book on hay fever, so I bought it and 
studied it with great care, and obtained great re- 
lief. Was not that profitable study? But what 
is getting deliverance from some such wretched 
complaint as hay fever, to getting eternal life, and 
the proper study of this Book brings eternal life. 
No man can study even one book in the Bible, the 
Gospel of John, in the way he ought to study it, 
without believing before he gets through **that 



VALUE OF BIBLE STUDY 21 

Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by ** be- 
lieving,'' obtaining ** eternal life in His name." 
I have proven that time and time again upon all 
classes of men, from bartenders to a College Dean 
in one prominent British University and a very 
distinguished professor in another. 

3. In the third place, the Bible imparts God's 
own nature to the men, women and children who 
study it as they should, and thus completely 
transforms their inmost and their outward life. 
Peter puts it this way: * through these (i. e., 
through the exceeding great and precious prom- 
ises of the Book), ye may become partakers of 
the divine nature'' (2 Pet. 1:4, R. V.). Is not that 
great, to become a partaker of God's own nature? 
Well, it is through the proper study of this Book, 
by the truth of this Book carried home to our 
hearts by the Holy Spirit as we study it, that we 
become partakers of God's own nature. Centuries 
of experience prove the truth of this wonderful as- 
sertion of Peter. Countless men and women of the 
most depraved nature have obtained an entirely 
new nature, God 's own nature implanted in them, 
by the proper study of this Book. I have been 
told that if you study Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy's 
*' Science and Health" sedulously enough it will 
cure you of appendicitis. Well, study this Book 
as you ought and it will cure you of Devilitis. 
I have found it so in my own experience. If any 
man ever had the devils, I had them. Neither 



22 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

Mrs. Eddy nor Christian Science cured me, but 
this Book did. Try it for yourself. 

4. In the fourth place, this Book when properly 
studied, makes the one who studies it ^'grow like 
the palm tree" in all the graces and glories of 
Christian character, ** Desire the sincere milk of 
the Word/' says Peter, **that ye may grow 
thereby.'' (1 Pet. 2:2.) Various neighbors of 
mine in South Pasadena have built homes since I 
located there and have set out various kinds of 
palm trees. It is simply amazing how they have 
grown. Ah, but that is nothing to the way men, 
women and children grow spiritually and morally 
when they feed as they ought on ''the Bread of 
Heaven'' and '*the milk" of Eden and **the finest 
of the wheat" in the Garden of God and **the 
honey out of the (Eternal) Eock," found in this 
Book. Oh, sometimes I almost grow weary when 
people come sighing about me from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific, and from the Gulf of Mexico to the 
border of Canada and beyond, blubbering over 
their poor progress in the Christian life, and 
wondering why they do not make more headway. 
And when I ask, *^Do you meditate in God's Word 
day and night? Do you really dig into the Bible 
every day ? " * * Oh, no, not every day, ' ' they reply, 
**I am very busy. I am a very hard working 
man," or *^I am a very active business man with 
many other men under me," or ^ 'I am a very 
busy mother, and I cannot find time to get 
down to solid Bible study every day." **Do yon 



VALUE OF BIBLE STUDY 23 

read the newspaper every day?*^ **Y-e-s, morn- 
ing and evening. ' ' And no time to get alone each 
day and listen to God? Thou fool! 

5. In the fifth place, the Bible properly studied, 
makes the heart pure and keeps the life white. 
* ^ Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his 
way?'* the Psalmist asks, and then replies, *'By 
taking heed thereto according to thy word.'' (Ps. 
119:9.) There is a power in this Book, when it 
is properly studied, to make and keep the life 
clean that no other book possesses. And there is 
also in this Book, when properly studied, a power 
that no other book possesses, to make and keep 
the heart pure. The Psalmist says again two 
verses farther down, in Psalm 119:11, *'Thy word 
have I laid up in my heart, that I might not sin 
against thee.'' Oh, how many stained lives I 
have seen bleached white by the power of the sun- 
rays of this Book. How many hearts I have known 
that were **full of all uncleanness" to be made 
pure and clean by filling them with the truth found 
in this Book. 

6. In the sixth place, the Bible, properly 
studied, brings peace, wonderful peace, to the 
troubled heart. The Psalmist says in Ps. 85:8, 
E. v., "I will hear what God Jehovah will speak; 
for He will speak peace unto his people, and to his 
saints." The one who learns to sit and listen to 
God as He speaks to him in this Book will hear 
Him speaking words that will fill the heart with 
peace, no matter how storms may rage without 



24 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

and no matter how war howls and bellows. Listen- 
ing to God's Word, David sang in the midst of the 
wildest conflicts, ** Jehovah is my light and my 
salvation; whom shall I fear? Jehovah is the 
strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? 
When evil-doers came npon me to eat up my flesh, 
even mine adversaries and my foes, they stumbled 
and fell. Though a host should encamp against 
me, my heart shall not fear: though war should 
rise against me, even then will I be confident/' 
(Ps. 27:1-3, E. V.) And our Lord Jesus, in the 
most awful night the disciples ever passed 
through, just before the wild storm-clouds broke, 
said to them, in speaking of the peace-giving 
power of His words, ^ * But the Comforter, even the 
Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my 
name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to 
your remembrance all that I said unto you. Peace 
I leave with you; my peace I give unto you: not 
as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your 
heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful/' (John 
14 :26, 27, E. V.) Oh, here is the practical secret of 
perfect peace, listening to the Saviour's words as 
found in this Book. He is always saying to the 
wind-driven heart, as He said to the wind-tossed 
sea of old, ** Peace, be still." And if we listen, 
there is always **a great calm." (Matt. 8:23-26.) 
7. In the seventh place, the Bible, properly 
studied, brings joy as well as peace, Jeremiah 
discovered that many, many centuries ago. In the 



VALUE OF BIBLE STUDY 25 

midst of crushing sorrow, in the midst of the dis- 
integration and shame and agony of the nation 
he passionately loved and for which he would 
gladly have died, in the midst of conditions as 
dark and foreboding as ever confronted any man 
on earth, he sang, * ' Thy words were found, and I 
did eat them; and thy words were unto me a joy 
and the rejoicing of my hearf ( Jer. 15 :16, R. V.) 
Is there any joy purer than that which comes from 
properly directed study? But there is no other 
study that brings joy for a moment comparable to 
the joy that comes from proper Bible study. 
Many forms of study bring great joy to a healthy 
mind. The joys that come from earnest study of 
various kinds, philosophical, scientific, historical, 
literary and linguistic have been among my chief 
joys for many years, nearly my whole life 
through, from early boyhood. But there has come 
into my heart a joy from Bible study, through dig- 
ging into the gold mines of this wonderful and 
inexhaustible Book, with which the joys that have 
come from all other forms of study are not worthy 
to be compared for one moment. There are no 
other joys like this. ''Blessed'' indeed *4s the 
man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, 
nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in 
the seat of the scornful. But his delight is i/n the 
law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate 
day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted 
by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his 



26 VALUE OF PROPER BIBLE STUDY 

fruit in his season ; his leaf also shall not wither ; 
and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." 

I might go on and on, telling the great things 
that the right Mnd of Bible study will do. There 
is no end to the subject; so we may as well stop 
here. 

Is it not as clear as day that the study of a Book 
that is what this Book most assuredly is, and a 
Book that does what this Book most assuredly 
does, is infinitely the most important and valuable 
study in the world? The luster of all other study 
grows dim compared with this. Will you then be- 
gin to study the Bible as you ought? Begin to- 
day. Please note that I have been careful to say 
over and over again ^ ^ the Bible properly studied, ' * 
that is, the Bible studied in the way and by the 
methods in and by which it should be studied ; the 
Bible studied in a way appropriate to the unique 
and divine character of the Book. There is Bible 
study, or at least what is called *^ Bible study," 
that is not so profitable as this. Indeed, there is 
what is called '* Bible study" that is not profitable 
at all, and even ** Bible study" so-called that is 
positively injurious. I would rather have a son 
or daughter of mine study almost anything else 
than have them study the Bible as they dream 
they study it at the Chicago University, or in the 
American Institute of Sacred Literature, and in 
many other places in these days. 

I will speak next Sunday morning on **How 
Properly to Study the Bible," how to study it for 



VALUE OF BIBLE STUDY 27 

light and not for darkness, how to study it for 
life and not for death, how to study it for blessing 
and not for cursing, how to study it so it will lift 
us up to heaven and not sink us down to hell. 



CHAPTER II 

HOW PROPEBIiY TO STUDY THE BIBLE 

* * These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they 
received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the 
scriptures daily, whether those things were so/' — ^Acts 17:11. 

My subject this morning is, Bow Properly to 
Study the Bible, I have eleven texts in which God 
Himself tells us very plainly and very fully how 
to study His Book. 

Acts 17:11: '^ These were more noble than those 
m Thessalonica, in that they received the word 
with all readiness of mind, and searched the scrip- 
tures daily, whether those things were so." Isa. 
8:20, R. V. : '^jTo the law and to the testimony! if 
they speak not according to this word, surely there 
is no morning for them," Ps. 1:1-3: ^^ Blessed is 
the man that walketh not in the counsel of the umr- 
godly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor 
sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight 
is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he 
meditate day and night. And he shall be like a 
tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth 
forth his fruAt in his season; his leaf also shall not 
wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.** 
Ps. 119:11, E. v.: ''Thy word have I laid up in 
my heart, that I might not sin agavnst thee." 

28 



HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE 29 

1 Thess. 2:13: ''For this cause also thank we God 
mthout ceasing, because, when ye received the 
word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it 
not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the 
word of God, which effectually worheth also in 
you that believe/' John 7 :17, R. V. : '*// any man 
unlleth to do his will, he shall know of the teach- 
ing, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from 
myself.' ' James 1:22: ''But be ye doers of the 
word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own 
selves/' 1 Cor. 2:14: "But the natural man re- 
ceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for 
they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know 
them, because they are spiritually discerned." 
Ps. 119:18, R. v.: "Open thou mine eyes, that I 
may behold wondrous things out of thy law." 
Matt. 11:25: '^At that time Jesus answered anU 
said, I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and 
earth, because thou hast hid these things from the 
wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto 
babes." Luke 24:27, R. V. : "And beginning from 
Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted 
to them in all the scriptures the thi/ngs concerning 
himself." 

We saw last Sunday morning something of the 
importance and value of properly conducted Bible 
study. We saw that properly conducted Bible 
study was the one superlatively important study 
for young and old. We saw that Bible study 
towered above all other studies in importance and 
value. But we also saw that not all Bible study 



30 VALUE OF PEOPEB BIBLE STUDY 

had this great importance. We saw that there 
was in our day much that was called ** Bible 
study" that was not profitable at all; that indeed 
there was much that was called Bible study that 
was positively injurious. So our subject to-day 
is, How to Properly Study the^ Bible. I use the 
word ^ ^properly" in its exact sense, of appropri- 
ately or fittingly. A proper study of the Bible is a 
study of the Bible that fits the book you are study- 
ing. A study of other books that would be perfect- 
ly proper for them would not be proper at all for 
the Bible ; for the Bible is what no other book in 
the world is, the Bible is God's Book and other 
books are men's books. As Paul said in writing 
to the believers in Thessalonica, '^For this cause 
also thank we God without ceasing, because, when 
ye receive the word of God which ye heard of us, 
ye received it not as the word of men, hut as it is 
in truth, the word of God, which effectually work- 
eth also in you that believe." The proper study 
of the Bible will be the most highly profitable 
study of the Bible. The improper study of the 
Bible will be unprofitable study of the Bible. The 
great reason why the kind of study of the Bible 
that is done at the Chicago University and in the 
American Institute of Sacred Literature, and in 
many such places and institutions, is so unprofit- 
able, why it is oftentimes so positively pernicious 
and injurious, is because it is so utterly improper, 
so utterly unbefitting the Book upon which it is 
bestowed. No really intelligent man would study 



HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE 31 

a fairy tale in the same way he would study an 
accurate and entirely reliable history. And at 
Chicago University they study the histories of 
the Bible, which are the most exact and accurate 
and reliable histories ever written, as if they were 
fairy tales, or ^^folk lore." No really intelligent 
or rational man or woman would study an omni- 
scient God's Word as they would study ever- 
erring man's word. And the Bible is God's Word 
and they study it at Chicago University as if it 
were the word of men who did not know quite as 
much as the very self-sufficient teachers at Chi- 
cago University know. And that is a very im- 
proper, yes, a very asinine, way to study the Book 
that is so clearly demonstrated by eighteen cen- 
turies of investigation and uniform experience to 
be the very Word of God. 

How shall we study the Bible so as to study it 
properly and, therefore, study it for the highest 
profit? God Himself tells us and tells us in the 
Bible itself. 

/. Study the Bible, the Bible Itself 

1. In the first place. Study the Bible, the Bible 
Itself. The importance of that comes out in a very 
striking way in Acts 17:11; ''These were more 
noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they re- 
ceived the word with all readiness of mind, and 
searched the scriptures daily, whether those 
things were so." Notice please that it says they 



32 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

** searched the scriptures daily, whether those 
things were so/' They did not search the ** Tal- 
mud" nor the ^ ' Targmus, ' ' the commentaries on 
the scriptures, they went right to the scriptures 
themselves. They left the muddy streams of 
man's interpretations of the scriptures and went 
to the pure, crystal spring, the scriptures them- 
selves. That is the proper way to study the Bible : 
as it is God's Word, and as it alone is God's Word, 
we must each one of us go right to the Book 
itself for ourselves. It is as true to-day as it was 
when Jesus was here on earth, that men ^ 'make the 
Word of God of none effect through their tradi- 
tion" (Mark 7:13), and the cardinal principle of 
Protestant spiritual liberty as distinguished from 
Roman Catholic bondage to a hierarchy, yes, the 
cardinal principle of New Testament Christian- 
ity, is for each child of God to go right to the pure 
fountain of God's Word for himself. Jesus 
Christ says, * ' Call no man your father upon earth : 
for one is your Father, even he who is in heaven," 
and call no man master, *'for one is your Master, 
even the Christ" (Matt. 23 :9, 10, R. V.) ; that is to 
say, recognize no absolute spiritual authority; 
stand in independent relations to God. I refuse in 
my study of the Book of God to bow to the abso- 
lute authority of any pope or bishop or priest, or 
of any theological professor. I refuse to bow to 
the Roman Catholic Pope Benedict or to the Prot- 
estant Pope, Shailer Mathews, or Pope Case, or 
Pope anybody else, and you on your part refuse to 



HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE 33 

bow to Pope Torrey or to Pope anybody else. Get 
right to the Book itself, ^'to the law and to the 
testimony! if they speak not according to this 
word, surely there is no morning for them." Do 
not study commentaries, lesson helps or other 
books about the Bible : study the Bibl'3 itself. Do 
not study about the Bible, study the Bible. The 
Bible is the Word of God, and only the Bible is 
the Word of God. A young man who had just 
graduated from one of our great Eastern Uni- 
versities came to Mr. Moody to consult with him 
as to his life work. He was a young man be- 
longing to a very wealthy family. Mr. Moody 
said to him ^^Do not go into business. You have 
more money now than you know what to do with. 
Why do you not give your life to teaching the 
English Bible?" The young man replied **I do 
not know anything about the English Bible." 
'^Why," Mr. Moody exclaimed, ^*I thought you 

had just graduated at University, and that 

they had a high-priced professor employed there 
for the one purpose of teaching the English Bible. ' ' 
*'Yes," he said, ''that is true, and I have taken his 
classes. But, Mr. Moody, would you like to know 
how he teaches the English Bible ? We have been 
studying for six months to find out who wrote the 
Pentateuch, and we know less about it than when 
we started." That was not Bible study at all, it 
was study about the Bible. And a good deal of 
the so-called "study of the English Bible" to-day 



34 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

in universities and theological seminaries is of 
that character. 

Every child of God should dig into the Bible 
itself entirely independently of all commentaries 
or all lesson helps. I love to go alone with God 
and His Book and see what He has to say to me, 
without any man's intervention. The trouble with 
most of us is that we live on spoon victuals. You 
come here Sunday after Sunday and I ladle out 
to you what I have found in the Book. Go to the 
Book itself. I have sometimes watched a robin 
feed its young, and spit into their gaping mouths 
what it had dug up and chewed. I do not like it. 
It is doubtless necessary for young robins and 
chippy birds, but we ought to get beyond that and 
go right to the Book itself for ourselves. 

II. Study the Bible, Really Study It 

In the second place, Study the Bible, Really 
Study It. That too comes out in Acts 17 :11, they 
^'searched the scriptures daily, whether those 
things were so." Note carefully the word 
^^ searched/' or as it is translated in the Revised 
Version, ^^ examining the scriptures.'' The Greek 
word translated ^^ searched' ' in the Authorized 
Version and ^^ examining'' in the Revised Version, 
is a very strong word. It means ^Ho search after 
by looking through, to investigate, to examine, to 
inquire into, to scrutinize, to sift. ' ' It means the 
closest and most minute study. The Bible being 



HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE 35 

God's Book is full of meaning in its minutest 
word; and is worthy of not merely the cursory, 
superficial reading, the careless skimming that 
most people give to it. That is all most of the 
other books, men's books, deserve; any closer 
study than that is a waste of time. But the Bible, 
being God's Book, God's own Perfect Word, God's 
inexhaustible storehouse of truth, in which are hid- 
den the infinite treasures of the wisdom and knowl- 
edge of God, is worthy of the closest and minutest 
study. And it abundantly rewards such study, 
and that is one of the countless proofs that the 
Bible really is God's Word. The more closely 
and microscopically you study this Book, the more 
you see and the more wonderful the blessing you 
get. The Bible should be studied with the closest 
and most concentrated attention. Here is where 
more people miss the fullest blessing in their study 
of the Bible than anywhere else. They are looking 
at the Bible with their bodily eyes, but their minds 
are off in a dozen other places. When you study 
the Bible, resolutely shut everything else out, shut 
to the door of your mind to everything else and 
shut yourself up with God alone. It may take 
time to cultivate this habit of concentrated atten- 
tion, but any Christian can accomplish it. If you 
find your mind wandering, go back and fasten 
your eyes and your mind on that verse again, and 
chew every word. Eemember what Jeremiah said, 
* ^ Thy words were found and I did eat them; and 
thy words were unto me a joy and the rejoicing 



36 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

of my hearf (Jer. 15:16, R. V.) A very promi- 
nent and very busy business man said to me one 
nigM, * ^ Tell me in a single word, bow to study my 
Bible. ' ' I replied, '* It is a pretty big contract, to 
tell a man in a single word bow to study tbe Bible, 
but if I must put it into one word, tbis is tbe word, 
*tbougbtfully' — study tbe Bible tbougbtfully, give 
your wbole attention to tbe Bible as you study 
it. ' ^ It is well to read a cbapter of tbe Bible and 
tben close tbe book and see bow mucb you can re- 
member. Do tbe same witb single verses. Tbis is 
one of tbe greatest secrets of profitable study of 
any kind, concentrated attention; but it is preemi- 
nently tbe secret of profitable Bible study. Tbe 
one great object of tbe analytical study, verse by 
verse, and word by word, of some books in tbe 
Bible, tbat I compel tbe students in tbe Bible 
Institute to do, is to train tbem to tbe babit of 
concentrated attention wben tbey study tbe Bible. 
But you do not need to be a student in tbe Bible 
Institute to do it; any of you can learn to do it. 
Not only can every one of you learn to do it, but 
you must learn to do it. 

III. Study the Bihle Daily 

In tbe tbird place. Study the Bihle Daily, Tbat 
also comes out in Acts 17 :11, ' ' Tbese were more 
noble tban tbose in Tbessalonica, in tbat tbey re- 
ceived tbe word witb all readiness of mind, and 
searcbed tbe scriptures daily, wbetber tbose 



HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE 37 

things were so." The daily study of the Bible 
is the only proper or fully profitable way to study 
the Bible. We saw ia our introduction that proper 
Bible study was the study that was appropriate 
or fitting to the Book we were studying, the kind 
of study of which that Book was worthy. As the 
Bible is God's Book, the only kind of study that 
is fitting to it, is every-day study. Do you not 
desire to know every day what God has to say that 
day? If you do not, you are a fool. Every 
Christian who does not study, really study j the 
Bible every day is a fool. Not only that, any 
Christian who neglects the study of the Bible one 
single day insults God. And you should put much 
time every day, no matter how busy you are, into 
Bible study. Certainly fifteen minutes a day is too 
little time to put into listening to what God has 
to say to you. My students think one hour a day 
is little enough time to spend with me and who 
am I? Who is God? One of the greatest follies 
of which the average Christian is guilty, is spend- 
ing so little time each day alone with God. Mr. 
Moody used to say, ''In our prayers we talk to 
God, in our Bible study God talks to us, and we 
had better let God do most of the talking.'' We 
certainly ought to spend more time every day 
listening to what God has to say to us in His Word 
than we require Him to spend in listening to what 
we have to say to Him in our prayers. Most of 
us spend too little time in prayer and almost every 
one of us spends far too little time in Bible study. 



38 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

Stop and register a resolution right now that from 
this time on you will spend more time every day 
of your life in listening to God as He speaks in 
His Word, more time in real Bible study. 

IV, Study the Bible to Find Out What it Actual- 
ly Teaches 

In the fourth place, Study the Bible to Find Out 
What it Actually Teaches. That too comes out 
in Acts 17:11, ^'they received the word with all 
readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures 
daily, whether these things were so/' It comes 
out in these words, '^whether these thvngs were 
so/' They *^ examined the scriptures'' to find out 
what they actually taught; not to find out some- 
thing to corroborate their own previous opinions 
but to find out exactly what God had to say. Do 
not study the Bible to find out what you can make 
it mean, but to find out what God evidently in- 
tended to teach. One of the most prolific sources 
of misunderstanding and evil in Bible study is 
found right here. Men go to the Book not to find 
out what God has to say and what He really means 
to teach, but to find something that will corrobo- 
rate their own view, or something that they can 
somehow twist into agreement with their own pre- 
conceived opinions. Take, for example, what the 
Bible teaches about the Second Coming of Christ. 
A host of books and pamphlets have appeared on 
this subject in the last few years, but not a few 



HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE 39 

of these do not exhibit the remotest desire to find 
out what the Bible really has to say upon the sub- 
ject and to accept that as final. They are simply 
a labored and ingenious attempt either to discredit 
what Christ Jesus and the apostles do say, or else 
to distort it and make it mean what any fair- 
minded man or woman in their inmost heart knows 
it was never intended to mean. Take, for exam- 
ple, Shailer Mathews' tract, ''Will Christ Come 
Again 1 ' ' From start to finish it is simply a subtle 
attempt to discredit the teaching of Jesus Christ 
and the apostles on this subject. Or take either 
of the two most lauded books on the Second Com- 
ing written from the Post-Millennial viewpoint. 
While they are not so outrageously and blasphe- 
mously irreverent in their allusions to the words 
of our Lord Jesus and the apostles as Shailer 
Mathews' pamphlet is, they certainly are not an 
honest, frank, simple-minded attempt to find out 
exactly what God has to say on the subject. It 
would be a glaring outrage to study any man's 
book in that way: it is an atrocious insult to God 
to study His Book in that way. Study the Bible 
with an absolutely single-eyed purpose to discover 
exactly what God intended to teach. 

V, Meditate Long and Profoundly on What You 
Find Taught in the Bible 

In the fifth place. Meditate Long and Profoumd- 
ly on What You Find Taught in the Bible. This is 



40 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

what we are taught in our third text, ^ ^ Blessed is 
the man that walketh not in the counsel of the un- 
godly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sit- 
teth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight 
is in the law of the LOED; and in his law doth 
he meditate day and night. And he shall be like 
a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth 
forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall 
not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall pros- 
per." As the Eternal and all- wise God is the 
Speaker in the Bible everything taught in the 
Bible is worthy of our most profound and most 
prolonged consideration. We should ponder it, 
we should weigh it, we should thoroughly masti- 
cate and digest it, we should ^^ meditate upon'' it 
as we read it and hear it, and afterwards as we 
go about our daily work we should ^^ meditate 
upon it day and night/' Meditation is one of the 
most fruitful processes of the human mind. But 
how fruitful and profitable meditation may be de- 
pends entirely upon what we meditate upon. 
There is no profit in meditation that is mere mind- 
wandering and day-dreaming. The most fruitful 
and profitable of all meditation is meditation upon 
God's revealed truth, God's revealed Word. It is 
by meditation upon the truth that truth fructifies, 
just as eggs hatch by being sat upon. ^'Blessed," 
infinitely *^ blessed, is the man that meditateth 
upon the Word of God day and night. ' ' One of the 
best ways to conserve golden moments that might 
otherwise be squandered (for example, as we walk 



HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE 41 

the streets or fields or ride on the trolley car) is to 
meditate upon the Word you have been studying. 
Turn God 's Word over and over and over again in 
your mind as you study it. Look at all the facets 
of each diamond of truth. Let the Word soak in, 
let it saturate your life, your thoughts, your feel- 
ings, your will. Bible-soaked thoughts are God- 
like thoughts. Bible-soaked affections are God- 
like affections. A Bible-soaked will is a God-like 
will. That is a large part of what is meant in 
John 15 :7, R. V. * 'If ye abide in me, and my words 
abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall 
be done unto you.'' '* Meditate" on the Word of 
God **day and night." 

VI, Store the Bible Up in Your Memory 

In the sixth place, growing out of what we have 
just said. Store the Bible Up vn Your Memory. 
Without such storing up in memory the most 
profitable meditation upon it is impossible. The 
great profit of storing up the Bible in your mem- 
ory is set forth in Psalm 119 :11, R. V. *'Thy word 
have I laid up in my heart, that I might not sin 
against thee. ' ' That is the proper thing to do with 
God's Word, lay it up in your heart. What is so 
worthy of being treasured in our minds as the 
golden words of God? Whoever has God's Word 
stored away in his mind has treasure vaults filled 
with pure gold. Our Lord Jesus, as part of His 
farewell message to His disciples in the wonderful 



42 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

fourteenth chapter of John (R. V.) says in v. 21, 
*^He that hath my commandments, and keepeth 
them, he it is that loveth me : and he that loveth me 
shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him, 
and will manifest myself unto him. ' ^ Do you not 
long to be one of those whom the Father and the 
Son peculiarly *4over' Do you not long to have 
the Lord Jesus ^^ manifest' Himself to you! Well, 
these words tell you how to secure these priceless 
privileges, '*He that hath my commandments, and 
keepeth them, he it is that loveth me : and he that 
loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will 
love him, and will manifest myself unto him/' To 
keep Christ's words means more than simply to 
obey them; it means to treasure them, to hold on 
to them, to store them up in your mind and heart, 
or to use David's phrase, ^^lay them up in your 
heart." Then in John 14:23, Jesus says, ^*If a 
man love me, he will keep my word : and my Father 
will love him, and we will come unto him, and 
make our abode with him/' Is not that great, 
having the Father and the Son making their home 
with us? Well, it is through the treasured up 
Word that this is brought about. Just two sug- 
gestions about how to memorize scripture ! First, 
memorize it systematically. Do not have a jumble 
,of disjointed texts in your mind, but classified and 
associated texts. Association is the great secret 
of a retentive memory. Group your memorized 
passages together, classify them in a logical and 



HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE 43 

orderly way. Second, commit the verses to mem- 
ory by chapter and verse. 

VII. Study the Whole Bible 

In the seventh place, Study the Whole Bible. 
That comes out in a very striking way in Luke 
24 :27, R. V.,^ * And beginning from Moses and from 
all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the 
scriptures the things concerning himself. ' ' We see 
that Jesus studied not merely parts or frag- 
ments of the Bible, but the whole Bible as far as 
He had it, ^'beginning from Moses and from all 
the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the 
scriptures the things concerning himself.'' The 
whole Bible is the Word of God; therefore every 
part of the Bible should be studied. We not only 
need to know the mind of God, but the whole mind 
of God. One of the commonest causes of com- 
paratively unprofitable Bible study is that only 
parts of the Bible are studied. Some only study 
pet books. Some study only the New Testament ; 
some study only the Psalms; some never study 
Genesis ; some never study prophecy, they never 
study Revelation and they never study Daniel. 
Others study nothing but Daniel or Revelation. 
Some study only pet subjects ; some never study 
anything but Divine healing, and some never study 
Divine healing at all. Some never study the Sec- 
ond Coming of Christ and others never study any- 
thing but the Second Coming of Christ. You never 



44 VALUE OF PROPEE BIBLE STUDY 

rightly understand any one of the sixty-six books 
of the Bible until you study it in its relation to 
the other sixty-five. You never rightly under- 
stand any subject in the Bible until you under- 
stand it in its relation to other subjects in the 
Bible. 

VIII, Study the Bible as the Word of God 

In the eighth place. Study the Bible as the Word 
of God, This we are taught to do by God Himself 
in 1 Thess. 2:13, *'For this cause also thank we 
God without ceasing, because, when ye received 
the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received 
it not as the word of men, but as it is i/n truth, 
the word of God, which effectually worketh also in 
you that believe. ' ' We have already seen that the 
proper way to study any book is to study it as 
just what it is. Well, then it is clear as day that, 
as the Bible is the Word of God, the proper way to 
study it and the only proper way to study it, the 
only way to get the largest profit out of the study 
of it, is to study it as the Word of God, Many 
distinguished university professors say we should 
study the Bible just as we study any other book, 
and they fancy that they have said something won- 
drously wise when they have said it. But while 
it is partly true, it is very largely false ; indeed, 
it is very largely abject nonsense. We should 
study the Bible as we study any other book to 
this extent, that we apply to it the same laws for 



HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE 45 

the discovery of the meaning of words and phrases 
and the same laws of grammatical construction 
that we apply to any other book; but there the 
principle ceases. We should study it as we study 
no other book, for it is what no other book is ; it 
is God's Word and all other books are men's 
words, and we should study it as what it is, and 
we should study other books as what they are. 
So we should study the Bible and the Bible alone, 
as God's Word, and we should study every other 
book as men's word for that is exactly what they 
are. What is involved in studying the Bible as 
God's Word? Five things: 

1. First, that we believe absolutely its every 
statement. We may not see how it can be true, 
but we should believe it just because God says it. 
Abraham could not see how he, when he was 
'* about 100 years old" and Sarah nearly as old, 
and childless, could become *^a father of many 
nations"; but God said so and Abraham believed 
it, and * ' God counted it to him for righteousness ' ' 
(Gen. 15 :6). If we have really good sense we will 
behave just like Abraham. God says something in 
this Book ; Prof. So and So says it is not so, and 
the Rev. Dr. Bighead, D.D., Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D., 
F.R.G.S., A. S. S., says it cannot be so ; but as God 
says so, you and I, if we have real good sense, will 
believe it in spite of all the A.S.S.E.S. in the world. 

2. In the second place, that we bamk vmhesitat- 
ingly and without a trace of doubt or anxiety lest 
it fail us on its every promise in all its height and 



46 VALUE OF PROPER BIBLE STUDY 

depth and length and breadth. I am only a frail 
and feeble man, but I expect every man to accept 
and rest absolutely upon every promise of mine. 
And God, who cannot lie (Tit. 1:2), not only ex- 
pects that of you and me, He demands it, and you 
are a fool if you do not do it. A good many of the 
promises of this Book seem altogether too big to 
believe, but God made them and there is nothing 
too big for God, and not a promise in this Book 
ever went down yet, if you put both your feet upon 
it. I have found that out by 36 years of experi- 
ence. This Book tells me that I am an heir of God 
and a joint-heir with Jesus Christ; it promises me 
that I am to inherit all God is and all God has. It 
looks ridiculous to me, but I believe it. God says 
it and, therefore, I believe it. I would be a fool 
if I did not. 

3. In the third place, studying the Bible as the 
Word of God involves your obeying implicitly and 
exactly its every commandm&nt that is addressed 
to you. There are commandments in this Book 
that are not addressed to you: the Bible explicitly 
says that they are addressed to Jews and you are 
not a Jew. But there are many commandments 
that are addressed to you ; obey every one of them 
to the last jot and tittle. It will seem hard some- 
times but it will pay. 

4. In the fourth place, studying the Bible as 
the Word of God involves, studying it as God's 
message to you, studying it not as God's Word 
in the abstract, but God's Word in the concrete, 



HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE 47 

God's Word to you. Forget everybody else for 
the time being and think of God as saying this 
thing to you. Oh, it is fine to have a talk with God 
and to have Him do the talking. He has so much 
more to say that is worth hstening to than you or 
I have to say to him. I know a man out in China 
who has the rare gift of keeping his mouth shut 
in seven different languages. He is quite a young 
man but he has acquired a great reputation for 
sagacity because he so seldom says anything. He 
listens. But the place of places to keep still is 
when you are studying the Bible; keep still and 
listen and let God do the talking. 

5. In the fifth place, studying the Bible as the 
Word of God involves studying the Booh as in 
the presence of God. See God standing right there 
saying these things which are written. Have you 
never thought, when you have read how God came 
down and talked with Abraham face to face, that 
you wished He could come down and talk that way 
with you? Well, we have a privilege far beyond 
that of Abraham. It was only in a few very rare 
instances that God came down and met Abraham 
and talked with him, but God is ready to come 
down and meet us and talk with us face to face 
every time we open our Bibles. Oh, it is great to 
have God call you into His presence and say, **I 
have something I want to whisper right into your 
ear alone and into your heart,'* and then open 
your Bible and see God standing there and hear 
Him saying that which is written there in the Book 



48 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

before your eyes. Studying the Bible that way 
makes the Bible a new and living Book. It is great 
to study the Bible on your knees. It has been one 
of the rarest privileges of my life to read every 
chapter in the Bible and every verse in the Bible 
on my knees. And it is your privilege to do the 
same. 

IX. Study the Bible With a Will Wholly Sur- 
rendered to God 

In the ninth place, Study the Bible With a Will 
Wholly Surrendered to God, That is one of the 
greatest secrets of proper and profitable Bible 
study. There is nothing that clears up the mind 
to see and understand what God says and what 
God means like a will wholly surrendered to God. 
Our Lord Jesus Himself teaches us that. He says 
in John 7 :17, R. V., *'If any man willeth to do his 
willy he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of 
God or whether I speak from myself. ' ' The mind 
of the man whose will is not surrendered to God 
is a fogbank; the mind of the man whose will is 
surrendered to God is clear shining as a perfect 
California day. Oh, I have known men to whom 
the Bible was a sealed book, a useless book, a silly, 
stupid book, but by the unreserved surrender of 
their wills to God the Bible became an open book. 
The surrender of the will to God will do more to 
make the Bible an open book than a university 



HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE 49 

education at home and abroad in Greek and 
Hebrew and cognate languages. I have known 
great Greek scholars and great Hebrew scholars 
who were as blind as a bat to the real meaning of 
God^s Word, simply because their wills were not 
surrendered to God; and I have known men and 
women who knew none of "the original lan- 
guages** in which the Bible was written, neither 
the original Greek, nor the original Hebrew, only 
''the original English,'* who were open-eyed to all 
that was best and dearest in this Book because 
their wills were utterly surrendered to God. We 
had a young woman in the Bible Institute in Chi- 
cago years ago who seemed to have no fitness to 
be a student at a Bible Institute. She was en- 
tirely out of harmony with the place and densely 
ignorant of the things of God. One day she went 
(as all the women students were required to go 
now and then) down to one of the destitute parts 
of the City, calling from house to house upon the 
poor. She became utterly disgusted with the sur- 
roundings and quit her work and went down to 
the Lake Shore Drive and walked along in front 
of the magnificent mansions there and said to her- 
self, ''Now, this is what I like, and this is what 
I am going to have. I am thoroughly sick of Mil- 
ton Ave. and Townsend St. This for me.*' In 
that rebellious state of mind she returned to the 
Institute and the bell soon rang for supper. She 
went down and took her seat at the table, still re- 



50 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

belling at the thought of a life of sacrifice amid 
unpleasant surroundings. But suddenly, there at 
the supper-table, she surrendered her will to God, 
sprang from the table, rushed over to one of the 
other girls, threw her arms around her and said, 
*^I am a volunteer for Africa.'' A wonderful 
transformation and a wonderful opening of her 
mind to the things of God occurred instantly. I 
was away when it all happened, but when I came 
back my secretary told me about it ; for it was the 
talk of the school. A little later in the day as I 
passed out of the gate on La Salle Avenue I met 
her just coming in. She looked up radiantly into 
my face and said, ^'Oh, Mr. Torrey, have you 
heard the news I" I said, ^^Yes, Jack, Miss Waite 
has told me." Then she fairly danced in holy glee 
on the sidewalk as she poured out her glad heart, 
and then she said, * ^ Oh, Mr. Torrey, the most won- 
derful thing about it is that the Bible is a new 
Book. I thought the Bible was the most stupid 
book in the world. I would rather have read an 
old almanac than the Bible. You did compel me 
by your lectures at Northfield to believe in the 
Deity of Christ, but the Bible I could not endure. 
But oh, since I surrendered my will, what a won- 
derful Book the Bible is ; God is making marvel- 
ous revelations to me from it every day.'' Oh, 
men and women, if you want a Bible that is won- 
derful, a Bible whose every page glows with glory, 
study it with a will absolutely surrendered to God. 



HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE 51 

X. Study the Bihle to Learn How to Live Your 

Daily Life, and Live Your Daily Life 
That Way 

In the tenth place, Study the Bihle to Learn 
How to Live Your Daily Life, and Live Your 
Daily Life That Way. God commands ns to do 
this in James 1 :22. He says, *^Be ye doers of the 
word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own- 
selves.'' Very many study the Bible, yes, dig 
into it, spend hours with it, just to gratify their 
curiosity on the great subjects of which the Bible 
treats, or to quahfy themselves to be expert theo- 
logical disputants. No, no, no, study the Bible 
to find out how to live so as to please God, and 
live that way. Studying the Bible mth an eager 
desire to learn how to please God, and living that 
way, goes a long way toward making the Bible 
an open book. People often ask, what is the best 
translation of the original scriptures, the Author- 
ized Version, or the Eevised Version, or Wey- 
mouth's, or whose translation? Listen, infinitely 
the best translation of the Bible is the translation 
into daily living. 

XI. Study the Bihle Under the Holy Spirit's 

Personal Direction 

In the eleventh place. Study the Bihle Under the 
Holy Spirit's Personal Direction. God tells us in 
1 Cor. 2 :14 : ' ^ But the natural man receiveth not 



52 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

the things of the Spirit of God : for they are fool- 
ishness nnto him: neither can he know them, be- 
cause they are spiritually discerned/' Do not 
study the Bible as the Christian Scientist studies 
it, through Mrs. Eddy's spectacles, under bond- 
age to ^^ Science and Health.'' Mrs. Eddy's 
spectacles are badly smoked glasses. Do not study 
the Bible as Pastor Russell's dupes study it, 
through that silly man's spectacles, trying to see 
the Bible with ^^ Millennial Dawn" standing be- 
tween you and the Book of God itself. Do not 
study it as the Mormon studies it, looking at the 
Bible through the densely opaque medium of the 
ridiculous and immoral Book of Mormon, appar- 
ently gotten up originally as a joke by a back- 
sliding Presbyterian preacher, Solomon Spauld- 
ing. ''Call no man master" (Matt. 23:10). Do 
not study it through any man's spectacles; study 
it through the telescope and microscope of the 
Holy Spirit. Study it under the personal direc- 
tion of the Holy Spirit. The way to obtain His 
personal direction in your study of the Bible we 
are told in Ps. 119:18, R. V.: ''Open thou mine 
eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of 
thy law." It is by asking for it. " If ye then, being 
evil, know how to give good gifts unto your chil- 
dren, how much more shall your heavenly Father 
give the Holy Spirit to them that ash Him'' (Luke 
11:13). We are also told in Luke 24:45, R. V., 
"Then opened He their mind, that they might 
understand the scriptures." 



tm 



HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE 53 

XII, Study the Bible with a Child-like Mind 

In the twelfth place, Study the Bible iinth a 
Child-like Mind. That is the only proper way 
to study the Bible, for the Bible is a revelation in- 
tended by God to be understood by all honest- 
minded, humble-minded, teachable people. Many 
very scholarly men study the Bible as if it were a 
puzzle book; instead of taking the meaning that 
lies on the surface, they dig down for some occult 
meaning, some meaning other than what the words 
seem to imply. The Roman Catholic Church says 
that simple-minded Christians must not dare to 
study the Bible for themselves independently — 
they must go to the priest to interpret it for them; 
and the Chicago University says that ordinary, 
*'unscholarly" regenerate men, women and chil- 
dren cannot get the Bible 's real meaning for them- 
selves, they must have some great scholar, soaked 
in the German infidelity of Wellhausen and Graf 
and their host of satellites and followers, to in- 
terpret it for them. But Jesus said, * ' I thank thee, 
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou 
hast hid these things frotn the unse and prudent, 
and hast revealed them unto babes,'' (Matt. 
11:25.) Oh, these ingenious and fantastic inter- 
pretations of cunning *' scholars," men who are so 
subtle that they are positively silly ! They would 
be laughable if they were not outrageous. Some 
men's erudition is very close to perdition. The 



54 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

little girl was rigM wlien she said, *^If God didn't 
mean what He said, why didn't He say what He 
meant?" He does say what He means, exactly 
what He means. 

XIII, Study the Bible Systematically 

Once more. Study the Bible Systematically. It 
is very clear from Luke 24 :27, E. V. that Jesus so 
studied it, for we read: *^And beginning from 
Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted 
to them in all the scriptures the things concerning 
himself." Have some good system of Bible study 
and follow it. System counts in everything, but 
it counts more in study than it counts in any- 
thing else : and it counts more in Bible study than 
in any other form of study. I have not time here 
to go into the details of systems or methods of 
Bible study. 

Let me add just one word, improve spare mo- 
ments for Bible study. Carry a Bible with 
you wherever you go, or at least a New Testa- 
ment, and wherever you have a spare moment, 
put it into Bible study. But, do not rest content 
with the use of spare moments in Bible study; 
have a regular set time every day that is kept 
sacredly for getting alone with God in the study of 
His Word, 



CHAPTER III 



HOW TO INTERPRET THE BIBLE SO AS TO FIND ITS TRUE 
MEANING 

* ' For we are not as the many, corrupting the Word of God : but 
as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in 
Christ.''— 2 Cor. 2:17, K.V. 

' ' Therefore seeing we have this ministry, even as we obtained 
mercy, we faint not: (2) but we have renounced the hidden things 
of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the Word of 
God deceitfully ; but by the manifestation of the truth commend- 
ing ourselves to every mans conscience in the sight of God. (3) 
And even if our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that perish: 
(4) in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of the 
unbelieving, that the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, 
who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them." — 2 Cor. 
4:1-4, E.V. 

''"Give diligence to present thyself approved unto God, a work- 
man that needeth not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of 
truth."— 2 Tim. 2:15, E.V. 

" The Devil . . . saith unto him, , , . it is written." — Matt. 
4:5-7. 

My subject this morning is, How to Interpret 
the Bible so as to Find its True Meaning. I have 
four texts. The first is 2 Cor. 2:17, R. V.: ''For 
ive are not as the man]/, corrupting the word of 
God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the 
sight of God, speak we in Christ." The word 
translated ''corrupting^' in this verse is the par- 
ticiple of a verb derived from a noun meaning ' * a 
tavern keeper, or a wine merchant, a petty re- 
tailer, a huckster, a peddler," and the thought is 
that as tavern keepers and wine merchants and 

55 



56 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

peddlers frequently adulterate their wines or 
fruits, or other wares, so many alleged teachers 
of the Word of God adulterate the Word of God. 
That is certainly true of not a few preachers and 
*^ Bible teachers'' and * ^ theological professors'' in 
America and elsewhere in these days. Paul says 
he was not in that contemptible disreputable busi- 
ness ; and we ought to be careful that we are not 
when we teach or when we study God's word. 

Our second text is 2 Cor. 4:1-4: '' Therefore see- 
ing we have this ministry, even as we obtained 
mercy, we faint not : but we have renounced the 
hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, 
nor handling the word of God deceitfully ; but hy 
the manifestation of the truth commending our- 
selves to every man's conscience in the sight of 
God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled 
in them that perish {are perishing) : in whom the 
god of this world hath blinded the minds of the mv- 
believing, that the light of the gospel of the glory 
of Christ, who is the image of God, should not 
dawn upon them/' The word translated ^^hand- 
limg deceitfully'' in these verses means to ** cor- 
rupt" as metals are debased or wine adulterated, 
and the thought is that of debasing the pure gold 
of God's Word, or adulterating the pure wine of 
God's Word, by minglin-g with it false ideas. 
That too is a common practice to-day. Paul says 
that he has ** renounced the hidden things of 
shame" and that he is ^^not walking in (theologi- 
cal) craftiness (cunning or subtlety)" — it is evi- 



HOW TO INTEEPRET THE BIBLE 57 

dent that he had not had the advantage of an edu- 
cation in some of our American institutions — and 
that he was not debasing the pure gold of ^^the 
Word of God" or adulterating the pure wine of 
the ^^Word of God'' by mixing in his own precon- 
ceived notions. Here too we also greatly need to 
be on our guard when we study or teach the 
^^Word of God.'' 

Our third text is 2 Tim. 2:15: '*Give diligence 
to present thyself approved unto God, a workman 
that needeth not to be ashamed, handling aright 
the word of truth." The Authorized Version, as 
you know, reads, * ' Study to show thyself approved 
unto God, a workman that needeth not to he 
ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth/' The 
Greek word Paul actually used means, ^* cutting 
straight, ' ' and that would be a better way to trans- 
late it here than the way in which it is rendered in 
either the Authorized Version or the Revised Ver- 
sion. Then the verse would read * * Give diligence 
to present thyself approved unto God, a workman 
that needeth not to be ashamed, cutting straight 
the word of truth." I tell you there is a lot of 
crooked cutting nowadays when men come to the 
study and interpretation of the Word of God, 
especially when they find something they do not 
wish to believe. Some years ago, a friend of 
mine passed by a carpenter and joiner's shop in a 
Southern city. Over the door was this sign, ^^All 
sorts of twisting and turning done here." That 
would be a fine sign to put over the door of some of 



58 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

our theological seminaries, and many of our pul- 
pits and Bible classes, and many a room where 
Christians are studying the Word of God alone ; 
and each one of us needs to be very much on our 
guard that this may not be an appropriate sign 
to be put over the door of the room where we 
study our Bible alone. Remember, as you study 
the Bible that it is God's Word and be sure 
to '^cut it straight.'' My fourth text is Matt. 
4:5-7, *^The devil . . . saith unto Him, ... it is 
written." You see from this passage that the 
devil can quote scripture and interpret or misin- 
terpret scripture, and argue from what ''is writ- 
ten" in the Book of God. If you think he has quit 
the business, read *^ Pastor" Russell's ** Millen- 
nial Dawn," or Mrs. Eddy's ^'Science and 
Health," or some of the productions of the 
*^ American Institute of Sacred Literature" or the 
Chicago University, or some of the Sunday School 
helps sent out by some of our denominational 
Boards. But I would not advise you to spend 
much time on this evidently devil-inspired trash. 
It is not enough to study the Bible, nor even to 
spend several hours in Bible study daily. We 
must seek diligently to ''cut it straight/' We 
must find out how to interpret the Bible so as 
to find its true meaning, so as to discover just 
what God meant to teach by each verse we study : 
and then interpret it that way in every instance. 
Of many passages of scripture there are several 
possible meanings; one man says it means one 



HOW TO INTEEPEET THE BIBLE 59 

thing and another man says it means another 
thing. Now God intends only one of these mean- 
ings. We should seek to find out not what men 
say it means, even good men, but what God in- 
tended it to teach. Is there any way in which 
ordinary men like you and me can tell to a cer- 
tainty which interpretation of several possible in- 
terpretations of a passage is the right interpreta- 
tion, the exact meaning God intended to convey? 
There is. There are certain Laws of Interpreta- 
tion that will enable you to know in at least al- 
most every instance just what is the true inter- 
pretation of every verse in the Bible, what is the 
true sense of the passage, just what God wishes to 
teach. I shall endeavor to state these laws so you 
can all understand them and then apply them for 
yourselves. 

/. Get Absolutely Right with God Yourself by 
the Absolute Surrender of Your Will to God 

The first great law of correct Bible interpreta- 
tion, which will be recognized as a law of God by 
any fair-minded person who gives it a few min- 
utes' consideration, is Get Absolutely Right unth 
God Yourself by the Absolute Surrender of Your 
Will to Him. The only man who is at all compe- 
tent to interpret the will of God is the man who is 
in harmony with God, and the only man who is in 
harmony with God is the man whose will is fully 
surrendered to God. If you are not right with 



60 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

God yourself, you certainly are not competent to 
say what Grod means by any passage in His Word. 
Our Lord Jesus Himself says this in John 7 :17, 
R. v., *^If any man willeth to do Ms mil, he shall 
know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or 
whether I speak from myself. '^ Nothing else so 
clears up our minds to understand the Word of 
God as the surrender of our wills to God. The 
will is the eye of the soul. Our Lord says that also. 
He says in Matt. 6 :22, 23, R. V., ^^The lamp of the 
body is the eye: if therefore thine eye he single, 
thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine 
eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of dark- 
ness." And it is clear from the next verse that by 
a * ' single eye ' ' He means a will fully surrendered 
to God. His words are, ''No man can serve two 
masters: for either he will hate the one, and love 
the other ; or else he will hold to one, and despise 
the other. '^ If your will is surrendered to God 
and to Him alone, your '^eye'' is ^'single," and 
your *^ whole body full of light.'' But if your 
will is not fully surrendered to God and Him 
alone, your **eye'' is ^^eviP' and your whole per- 
son is **full of darkness.'' Nothing else gives us 
such a clear eye to discern, as we read God's 
Word, just what God means, as an entirely sur- 
rendered will. A surrendered will will do more to 
qualify any one to be a competent and dependable 
interpreter of the Word of God than the fullest 
possible university course in Greek and Hebrew 
and the cognate languages. As I said last Sun- 



HOW TO INTEEPEET THE BIBLE 61 

day, I have known great Greek scholars and great 
Hebrew scholars and men deeply versed in the 
cognate languages who were blind as a bat to the 
real meaning of the scriptures because they lacked 
that clearness of spiritual vision that comes only 
from a surrendered will. And on the other hand 
I have known very ordinary and quite uneducated 
men and women, men and women with no preten- 
sions whatever to scholarship, who had a wonder- 
ful understanding of the meaning of God's Word 
because their wills were surrendered to God. We 
get this same principle of Bible interpretation 
from Psalm 25:14: ^*The secret (or, the friend- 
ship) of Jehovah is with them that fear Him; and 
he will show them His covenant.'' The same 
thought is found in Prov. 3 :32, ^ ' The f roward is 
an abomination to Jehovah : but his secret is with 
the righteous. ' ' A closely similar thought is found 
in our Lord's last words to His disciples on the 
night before His crucifixion, in John 15 :15, E. V. : 
'^No longer do I call you servants ; for the servant 
knoweth not what his lord doeth : but I have called 
you friends ; for all things that I heard from my 
Father I have made known unto you.'' 

The first great principle of Biblical interpreta- 
tion is then, that the one who would interpret the 
Bible must himself he in harmony with the Author 
of the Booh hy the surrender of his will to God. 
Every theological professor whose will is not fully 
surrendered to God, should be turned out of the 
chair he occupies in any Seminary or University. 



62 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

When Mr. Alexander and I were holding meetings 
in a university city in England, Mr. Alexander 
was invited out to dinner by one of the most promi- 
nent officers in one of the theological schools con- 
nected with the university. This man, who was a 
fine man in many ways, took exception to some of 
our teachings. He accompanied Mr. Alexander 
after dinner out to his carriage, and as they stood 
by the carriage and had a few earnest parting 
words Mr. Alexander put the question straight 
to him, ^ ' Have you ever made a full surrender of 
your will to God?'* This prominent theological 
university teacher very frankly and gently said to 
Mr. Alexander, * ' No, Mr. Alexander, I have not. ' ' 
That accounted for his misunderstanding of the 
Word of God, and the same thing accounts for the 
misunderstanding of the Word of God on the part 
of a great many students of the Word to-day. See 
to it that you are not blinded in a similar way to 
the real meaning of God's Word. Unless you ful- 
fill this first great law of correct Bible Interpreta- 
tion it will not help you to fulfill the other laws. 
You will get nowhere in your study of the Word. 

77. Be Determined to Find Out Just What God 

Intended to Teach and Not What You 

Wish Him to Teach 

The second principle of correct Bible interpre- 
tation is. Be Determined to Find Out Just What 
God Intended to Teach and Not What You Wish 



HOW TO INTEEPRET THE BIBLE 63 

Him to Teach. One great reason why many do 
not find out the true meaning of God's words is 
because they do not really wish to find out the true 
meaning of God's words, but they wish to find 
some way in which they can force God's words 
into harmony with their own notions. Many men 
and women see in the Bible just what they wish to 
see in the Bible. This is the cause of the blinding 
of the eyes of many. Some one asked me the other 
day, * ' Why cannot the Jews see that their own Old 
Testament Scriptures predicted a suffering Mes- 
siah, who should make atonement for sin by His 
death and that Jesus is that Messiah? It is so 
plain." The answer is simple, because they do 
not wish to. And I asked the person who asked 
me this question another question, ^'Why do not 
Christians to-day see that there are other predic- 
tions in the Old Testament just as plain and far 
more of them, that the Messiah is coming as an all- 
conquering King to rule the nations with a rod 
of iron, that Jesus, the true Messiah, is coming 
again r' The answer to that is just as simple — 
because they do not wish to. 

There was a time many years ago when I was so 
certain that all men would ultimately be saved and 
the devil too, and was so determined to establish 
that doctrine, that I interpreted everything I 
found in the Bible on the subject of future punish- 
ment in the light, or rather in the darkness, of 
that determination of mine, to make the Bible 
square with my own view, which I reasoned out 



64 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

pMlosophically and was ready to defend against 
all comers. But when I reached the point where I 
desired not only to make the Bible square with 
my philosophical arguments for universal salva- 
tion, but to find out just what God really taught, I 
easily found just what God did teach; and my 
universal salvation arguments evaporated into 
thin air. We must all of us be on our guard at this 
point, that in absolute honesty we have but one 
wish and that is to find out just what God means 
by the verse we are studying and that only, no 
matter how much it may conflict with our previous 
ideas. 

Ill, Get the Most Accurate Text 

The third principle of correct Bible interpreta- 
tion is. Get the Most Accurate Text to Interpret. 
It is the original manuscripts of the Bible that are 
the very Word of God. Now we do not have the 
original Mss. of the Bible. We have many Mss. 
but not one of them is the original. There are 
many variations in the Mss. which we possess. 
But by a comparison of the very many Mss. we 
have of the various parts of the Bible — and we 
have far, far more Mss. of the books of the Bible 
than of any other ancient book — ^we can come very 
close to the original texts as they came from the 
hands of Paul and John and Matthew and the rest 
of the writers of the books of the Old and New 
Testaments. Indeed we have now what is to all 
practical intents and purposes what is the original 



HOW TO INTERPEET THE BIBLE 65 

text as it came from the hand of the original 
writers of the various books of the Bible. It is 
wonderful when one thinks of it, when we remem- 
ber how old these books are and how often they 
were copied and how very many Mss. we have 
and the advances in scholarship, especially in tex- 
tual criticism, that have been made in the time 
between when the Authorized Version was pub- 
lished 310 years ago in 1611 and when the Re- 
vised Version was published only a few years 
ago, in 1881 (The N. T.), that there are so few 
differences of real importance between the Author- 
ized Version and the Revised Version. There is 
not one single doctrine of any vital importance 
affected in the least by the variations between the 
two versions, not one. That is amazing and shows 
the wonderful providential care with which Grod 
guarded His own written word. But there are 
slight differences and, of course, we wish the exact 
mind of God and, as that is found in the original 
Mss., we therefore desire and should seek the 
purest text, the most exact text, the text which is 
closest to the original Mss. There can be no hon- 
est question that, taken all in all, the Revised Ver- 
sion presents a text more nearly exactly the same 
as that of the original Mss. than the Authorized 
Version. So, though for many reasons the 
Authorized Version is the better for the general 
reading of the average Christian, nevertheless, 
every one who wishes to find the exact words of 
God should have and should study the Revised 



66 VALUE OF PROPER BIBLE STUDY 

Version. There is one glaring misrendering in the 
Revised Version. It is f onnd in 2 Tim. 3 :16. The 
Revised Version reads, ^ ^ Every scripture inspired 
of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, 
for correction, for instruction which is in right- 
eousness," putting the *4s" after the *' inspired of 
God'' instead of before it as in the Authorized 
Version. There is absolutely no warrant for this 
change. It is utterly indefensible. It should read 
** Every scripture is inspired of God and is profit- 
able for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for 
instruction in righteousness.'' But the fault in 
that case is not in the Greek text upon which the 
Revised Version is built, but upon the translation 
of the text. There is no question about the Greek 
text even in this case. Many uncertainties about 
the meaning of various passages in the Bible 
would be easily settled if we would just look at the 
more correct text as given in the Revised Version. 
Take as an illustration, 1 Thess. 5:22. The 
Authorized Version renders this *^ abstain from 
all appearance of evil ; ' ' the R. V. renders it * * ab- 
stain from every form of evil." While the Greek 
text King James translators and the revisers 
used is the same, there is no room for doubt that 
the English text in the Revised Version gives the 
true sense of the Greek text better than the 
Authorized Version. We are not so much to * * ab- 
stain from the appearance of evil" but from what 
is actually evil, and from what is actually evil in 



HOW TO INTEEPRET THE BIBLE 67 

every form m which it appears, ^^ every form of 
evil.'' 

IV, Fimd Out the Most Exact and Literal Mea/ti- 
ing of the Text 

The fourth principle of correct Bible interpre- 
tation is, Find Out the Most Exact and Literal 
Meaning of the Text. It is one of the most firmly 
established principles of law in England and in 
America that ^^a law stands as it is written," i. e., 
that a law means exactly what it says and is to be 
interpreted and enforced just as it reads. This is 
just as good a principle for interpreting the Bible 
as for interpreting law. If Shailer Mathews and 
the rest of the higher critics and *'new theology" 
men were practicing law and should try in any 
court of justice to interpret laws as they interpret 
the BiblCj they would be laughed out of court. It 
is no wonder that the one who has done more to 
prick the iridescent soap bubbles of the higher 
critics and new theology men than almost any one 
else was a brilliant lawyer, knighted by King Ed- 
ward for his eminent legal talents, my late inti- 
mate and beloved friend, Sir Eobert Anderson. 
The primary meaning of any passage of Scripture, 
just as the meaning of any law on our statute 
books, is the literal meaning, unless it is perfectly 
plain from the context or from other scripture or 
from the manifestly figurative character of the 
passage that something else than the literal sense 
is intended. 



68 VALUE OF PBOPEB BIBLE STUDY 

Those who do not wish in any particular case 
to accept what God actually says, including some 
who really are scholars, who ought to know bet- 
ter, often take refuge from the plain meaning of a 
text by saying, ^^Oh, but you know *the letter kill- 
eth but the Spirit giveth life,' " by which they 
mean the literal sense of a passage, the interpreta- 
tion that takes God as meaning just what He says, 
kills, but a '* spiritual" interpretation, i. e., an in- 
terpretation that makes God mean something He 
does not say, gives life. If any one will look up 
PauPs words, 'Hhe letter killeth but the Spirit 
giveth life" (2 Cor. 3:6, E. V.) in their context, he 
will see that Paul never dreamed of such an inter- 
pretation or application of his words as these men 
give to them. It is clear as day from the context 
that what Paul meant was that the mere written 
letter, ^^ written with ink" (v. 3) or engraven ^^in 
tables of stone" killed, but the Word of God writ- 
ten ^^with the Spirit of the living God" on our 
hearts (^4n tables that are hearts of flesh") gives 
life. These men who thus misuse 2 Cor. 3 :6 call 
those who hold fast to the actual literal meaning 
of the words *^ deadly literalists. " But if that 
kind of literalism is ^ ' deadly, ' ' then Paul himself, 
the very one who wrote these words, was one of 
the most ^^ deadly literalists" the world has ever 
known; for Paul constantly insisted upon the lit- 
eral meaning of words and would build an argu- 
ment upon the tense, number or case of a word 
used. A very distinguished Hebrew scholar, a 



I 



HOW TO INTEKPRET THE BIBLE 69 

professor in a leading American theological semi- 
nary, once tried to work this interpretation of 2 
Cor. 3:6 on me. In a friendly discussion I had 
driven him into a comer by quoting a plain state- 
ment of God's Word. He could not escape, but 
tried to by the subterfuge of saying, ''But you 
know ' the letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life. ' ' ' 
I replied, ''Now Professor, do you really think 
that is what Paul means by those words?" And 
he frankly said, "No, I know it is not." 

Another very easy and very common way of 
reading out of the Bible what God lias put into it, 
is for men to say when they are driven into a cor- 
ner by some plain passage that they do not wish 
to believe, ' ' Oh, that is figurative, ' ' by which they 
mean it does not mean what it says, but you can 
take it to mean whatever you like. That is a very 
common way nowadays with the post-millennial- 
ists of reading out of the Bible what God so plain- 
ly says in it about the personal, visible, bodily, 
imminent coming again of our Lord Jesus. It is 
outrageous trickery, unworthy of any one who has 
sense enough to subordinate his own crude and 
fallible opinions to the plain teaching and in- 
finite wisdom of God's Word. When statements 
are plainly figurative, of course, interpret them as 
figures, but even then remember that figures stand 
for facts, and that God's figures never overstate 
the facts, and never misinterpret the facts, and 
that an honest man's figures never mean just the 
opposite of what they seem to teach. 



70 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

The most plain and obvious meaning of any 
passage in the Bible is always to be preferred to 
a subtle and ingenious one; for the Bible was 
written for plain, honest-minded, humble-minded, 
common folk and not for a. few sublimated mystics. 
Did not Jesus Himself say, ^ ^ I thank thee, 
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst 
hide these things from the wise and understand- 
ing, and didst reveal them unto babes : yea, Father, 
for so it was well-pleasing in thy sight!" (Matt. 
11:25, 26, E. v.). Well, do not forget it. A man 
who really was a great scholar once said at a Bible 
Conference, **I think the best method of Bible 
study is the haby method/' by which he meant just 
what Jesus Christ means here, that God reveals 
His truth to the humble, teachable mind, to the 
one who comes to Him as a babe. Eemember how 
Jesus said again, *^ Except ye be converted and 
become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter 
into the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 18:3.) 

V. Note the Exact Force of Each Word Used 

The fifth principle of correct Bible interpreta- 
tion is. Note the Exact Force of Each Word Used. 
Eemember that the Bible is Grod's Word and that 
God always says exactly what He means, no more, 
no less. Eemember that the Bible is verbally in- 
spired; i. e., that the Holy Spirit, the unerring 
Spirit of God led the Bible writers in the choice 
of every word they wrote, led them to write the 



HOW TO INTERPRET THE BIBLE 71 

word that exactly expressed what was in the mind 
of God, or, as Paul puts it, ^* Which things also 
we speak, not in words ivliich man's toisdom 
teachetli, but which the Spirit teacheth; combining 
spiritual things with spiritual words.'' (1 Cor. 
2 :13, R. v.). N'ote every word and the exact force 
of every tvord. Take, for example, Rev. 2 :10 : * *Be 
thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the 
crown of life. " Now this is constantly interpreted 
as meaning that we are saved by being faithful 
unto death, but it does not say so. It says, ^^Be 
thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the 
croivn of life." It tells us, not the way to be saved, 
but the way to obtain the crown. Take Luke 6 :30, 
R. v., *^Give to every one that asketh thee.'' This 
is constantly interpreted as if it meant *^Give to 
every one that asketh thee, just what he asJcs/^ 
but it does not say so ; it says, ^ ' Give to every one 
that asketh," but does not specify what to give 
to him. And it means exactly and literally what 
it says. It is far better to give some men advice 
than it is to give them money. The whole context 
shows we are to take God as our example in our 
giving and in all else that we do, and while God 
gives to every one that asks. He certainly does 
not always give even to His own children, the very 
thing we have asked. Take 'Eph. 4 :30, ' ' Grieve 
not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom ye were 
sealed unto the day of redemption." This is con- 
stantly interpreted as meaning that we are not to 
*' grieve away the Holy Spirit." But it does not 



72 YALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

say so. So far from teacMng us that we can grieve 
away the Holy Spirit, it tells us in the last part 
of the verse that we cannot, *4n whom ye were 
sealed unto the day of redemption/' But while 
we cannot grieve Him away, if we are children of 
God, we can grieve Him, and alas, we do. 

VI. Interpret the Words Used m Any Verse 
According to Bible Usage 

The sixth great principle of correct Bible in- 
terpretation is. Interpret the Words Used in Any 
Verse According to the Bible Usage of those 
words. Some people when they find any word in 
the Bible, run off for "Webster's Dictionary or the 
Standard Dictionary to find out just what the 
word means. No, go to the Bible. Take your 
concordance and look up every passage in which 
the word in question is used and you will have 
God's definition of its meaning. For example, 
take the word *^ death." In Eom. 6:23 we read, 
'^For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift 
of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
What does *^ death" mean here! Many run off to 
a dictionary and decide it means *^ cessation of 
existence," but take your Bible and concordance 
and go through the Bible and you will find it means 
nothing of the kind in the Bible. God Himself 
defines the '^death" which is the ultimate result 
of sin in Eey. 21 ;8: '^But the fearful and unbe- 
lieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and 



HOW TO INTEEPRET THE BIBLE 73 

whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolators, and 
all liars, shall have their part in the lake which 
hurneth with fire and hrintstone: which is the sec- 
ond death/' A man came into my office in Minne- 
apolis. This text was hanging among others upon 
the wall and he read, ^^The ivages of sifi is death/' 
and then turned to me and said, ^'Do you believe 
that?" I knew the man was an annihilationist 
and said, ^'Yes, sir, I believe it, but do you know 
what ^ death' means T' and then I took my Bible 
and showed him that his understanding of the 
word *' death'' was not the Bible meaning and I 
think I convinced him of his error. Take the word 
*' sanctify," a word of very frequent occurrence 
in the Bible. Many define the word for themselves 
and take it to mean, ^'to make absolutely holy 
in character," and build up a whole system of 
theology, and an utterly false system of theology, 
on their wrong definition. If they would take their 
Bibles and concordances and look up every one of 
the very many passages in the Bible where this 
word is used, they would find that the primary 
meaning of *Ho sanctify" is ^Ho set apart for 
God, ' ' and so they would find that the Bible teach- 
ing on this exceedingly precious and important 
subject of sanctification is entirely different from 
what they suppose. Just so with the word ^'jus- 
tify" and a multitude of other words. Wlien you 
are in doubt as to the exact meaning of any word 
in the Bible, take your concordance and look up 



74 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

every verse in tlie Bible where this word is used 
and you will see jnst what the word means. 

VII. Interpret the Words of Each Author in the 

Bible With a Regard to the Particular 

Usage of That Author 

The seventh principle of correct Bible interpre- 
tation is closely connected with the sixth. It is, 
Interpret the Words of Each Author in the Bible 
with a Regard to the Particular Usage of That 
Author. While God is the real Author of every 
book in the Bible, He used the individual person- 
ality of each man He employed to write the va- 
rious books which make up His own Word. So 
we should find how the particular writer that we 
are studying uses any word. For example, James 
does not use the words ^^ faith" and '^ believe" in 
the exact sense Paul uses them, nor in the exact 
sense in which John uses them. When James 
talks about ^^ believing" he means a mere intel- 
lectual conviction of the truth, and so he says, 
**the demons also believe, and shudder" (James 
2 :19, E. v.). Paul speaks of *^ believing" as a con- 
viction that governs a man's whole inner life, 
his intellect, his emotions, and his will ; so he says 
in Eom. 10:9, 10, E. V.: ''If thou shalt confess 
with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe 
in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, 
thou shalt be saved; for with the heart man be- 
lieveth unto righteousness; and with the mouth 



HOW TO INTERPEET THE BIBLE 75 

confession is made unto salvation. '* And he said 
to the Philippian jailer in Acts 16:31, R. V., ''Be- 
lieve on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved.'' 
John, too, when he speaks of *' believing'^ means 
a conviction to which a man utterly, unreservedly 
and gladly surrenders himself. So he says in 
John 20:31, R. V., ^^ These are written, that ye 
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
God; and that believing ye may have life in his 
name/' And he says in 1 John 5:1: ''Whosoever 
helieveth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of 
God;'' and four verses farther down, '^Who is he 
that overcometh the world, but he that helieveth 
that Jesus is the Son of God. ' ' 

VIII, Interpret Individual Verses With a 
Regard to the Context 

The eighth principle of correct Bible interpre- 
tation is, Interpret Individual Verses with a Re- 
gard to the Context. Many a verse might mean 
two or three or more different things if it stood 
alone, without any setting; but in the connection 
in which it is found in the Bible, taking note of 
what goes before and what comes after, it cannot 
mean but one of these three or four different 
things. So we must notice carefully what comes 
before the verse we are studying and what comes 
after it, if we are to find out the exact meaning of 
the verse before us. For example, take Acts 2 :39, 
R. v., *'For to you is the promise, and to your 



76 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

children, and to all that are afar off, even as many 
as the Lord our God shall call unto him/' Now 
what is ' ' the promise ' ' to which reference is made 
in this passage ? Some say it is the promise of sal- 
vation ; others say it is the promise to the individ- 
ual of the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Which is 
right? If the verse stood alone either one might be 
right. But when we look at it in its context, only 
one is seen to be the true sense. Read the verse 
that goes immediately before, *^And Peter said 
unto them. Repent ye and be baptized every one 
of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remis- 
sion of your sins ; and ye shall receive the gift of 
the Holy Spirit/' Then he goes on immediately to 
say, ''For unto you is the promise'' — ^what prom- 
ise! The promise, of course, of which he has just 
spoken, *^the promise of the gift of the Holy 
Spirit. ' ' Take John 14 :18, R. V. : * ^ I will not leave 
you desolate : I come unto you. ' ' To what coming 
does this refer, to the Second Coming of Christ, 
or to His coming in the Holy Spirit to dwell in 
their hearts? It might mean either, if it stood 
alone. But if you will read the two verses that 
immediately precede and the five verses immedi- 
ately following, you will see it refers to His com- 
ing in the Holy Spirit to dwell in their hearts. 
He says in the verses that immediately precede, 
* * And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you 
another Comforter, that he may be with you for- 
ever, even the Spirit of truth: whom the world 
cannot receive ; for it beholdeth Him not, neither 



HOW TO INTERPRET THE BIBLE 77 

knoweth him: ye know him; for he abideth with 
you, and shall be in you. ' ' Then He says, ' ' I will 
not leave you desolate: I come unto you/' This 
becomes even clearer in the verses that follow 
where He speaks of the coming of the Holy Spirit 
in which He will manifest Himself to them and 
will come and make His abode with them. 



IX. Interpret Individual Passage in the Light 
of Parallel or Related Passages 

The ninth principle of correct Biblical interpre- 
tation is, Interpret Individual Passages in the 
Light of Parallel or Related Passages, The 
meaning of many passages in the Gospels whose 
meaning seems doubtful would be settled at once 
if one would only read the parallel passages in 
another Gospel. Take for example, Luke 14: 26, 
27, R. V. : **If any man cometh unto me, and hateth 
not his own father, and mother, and wife, and chil- 
dren, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own 
life also, he cannot be my disciple. Whosoever 
doth not bear his own cross, and come after me, 
cannot be my disciple.'' Now that looks hard. 
It has puzzled more people than almost any other 
passage in the Bible. But turn to the parallel 
passage, Matt. 10 :37, 38, and it is all cleared up. 
**He that loveth father or mother more than me 
is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or 
daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And 
he that doth not take his cross and follow after 



78 VALUE OF PROPER BIBLE STUDY 

me, is not worthy of me." So it is evident that 
our Lord Jesns used the word *^hate'' in Luke 
14 :26, 27 in a sense in which it is used a number 
of times in the Bible, as a comparatively less love. 
Our love for God should be so immeasurably su- 
perior to our love to even the dearest of our 
earthly relatives that in comparison with our love 
to God our attitude toward them should be like 
aversion, or turning away from them. 

Take John 14:3, R. V., ^^I will come again, and 
will receive you unto myself; that where I am, 
there ye may be also." Now our Lord might refer 
to His coming again to receive us at death, or He 
might refer to His Second Coming. To which does 
He refer? Another passage clearly and unmistak- 
ably answers the question, 1 Thess. 4 :16, 17, R. V. : 
^ ^For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven, 
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and 
with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ 
shall rise first; then we that are alive, that are 
left, shall together with them be caught up in the 
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall 
we ever be with the Lord. ' ' There are four points 
in each statement ; they exactly cover one another 
and make it clear that PauPs words are an in- 
spired commentary on our Lord's words. Jesus 
says, ^ ^ I will come again ; ' ' Paul says, ' ' The Lord 
Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, 
with the voice of the archangel, and with the 
trump of God." Jesus says, *'And mil receive 
you unto myself ;'' Paul says, ^*We . . . shall he 



HOW TO INTERPEET THE BIBLE 79 

caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the 
air/' Jesus says, ^^That where I am, there ye muy 
he also-/' Paul says, ''So shall we ever he with the 
Lord/' Jesus says in introducing this promise, 
''Let not your heart he troubled;^' Paul says in 
closing, "Wherefore comfort one another with 
these words/' Take Matt. 13 :33, R. V. : ^^The king- 
dom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman 
took, and hid in three measures of meal, till it was 
all leavened. ' ' Now some say this means that the 
Kingdom of God, the truth of God and the Gospel 
of God, are going to gradually grow and spread 
until they pervade the whole world. Others say 
that the leaven represents the corrupt doctrine, 
that the woman, an apostate church, mixes in the 
children's bread and which multiplies like the 
yeast germs until the whole life and doctrine of 
the church is leavened. Which is right? Turn to 
1 Cor. 5:6-8, R. V., and you get God's answer to 
this important question: '^Know ye not that a 
little leaven leaveneth the whole lumpf Purge out 
the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even as 
ye are unleavened. For our passover also hath 
been sacrificed: wherefore let us keep the feast, 
not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of 
malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened 
bread of sincerity and truth." This is an in- 
spired commentary on our Lord's words and 
makes it as clear as day that the * heaven" refers 
to corruption, error and sin. 
The Bible itself is the very best commentary on 



80 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

the Bible. There is not a doubtful or difficult 
passage in the Bible anywhere that some other 
passage does not clear up and explain, if we seek 
long enough for it. The best book to help you in 
finding these other passages that clear up uncer- 
tainties and solve difficulties is the *^ Treasury of 
Scripture Knowledge.'' Of several possible ex- 
planations of a passage, choose the one in har- 
mony with the general teaching or trend of the 
Bible. If any one received a letter from me that 
had a statement in it that was capable of two 
interpretations, one of which was in harmony with 
the general trend of my letter and my other writ- 
ings, and one of which was utterly at variance with 
the general trend of my letter and with my other 
writings, he would not hesitate for one moment 
to give that interpretation that was in harmony 
with the general teaching and trend of my letter 
and of my other writings, and just so we ought to 
act in interpreting the Bible. This does not mean 
that we are to distort and twist a passage out of 
its obvious meaning so there may be no apparent 
contradiction between it and some other clear 
passage in the Bible. One of the most vicious 
principles of Bible interpretation is that we must 
reconcile every passage with the teaching of every 
other passage. As the Bible is the revelation of 
an infinite mind that presents all sides of the 
truth, it is inevitable that there should be in it two 
lines of truth which it is perfectly easy to recon- 
cile in a mind of infinite wisdom, but which we in 



HOW TO INTERPEET THE BIBLE 81 

our limitations of thought and onesidedness of 
thought, cannot reconcile at all. So, for example, 
we are not to try to explain away the clear teach- 
ing of the Word of Grod as to the sovereignty of 
God on the one hand, nor the clear teaching of the 
Word of God as to the freedom of the human will 
on the other hand. But if there are several very 
easily possible interpretations of a passage and 
one fits in more harmoniously with the general 
teaching and trend of the Bible than the other, 
that is the one to be accepted. 

X. Interpret Obscure Passages in the Light of 
Passages That Are Perfectly Plain 

The tenth principle of correct Biblical interpre- 
tation is. Interpret Obscure Passages in the Light 
of Passages that are Perfectly Plai/n. Many do 
just the opposite thing. There will be a number 
of passages, the meaning of which is as plain as 
day. There will be another passage which is more 
or less obscure, and they will ignore all these per- 
fectly plain passages and try to explain them away 
in the uncertain light of the obscure passage. 
Just the other procedure would be the rational 
one. Take, for example, 1 Cor. 9:27, R. V.: '^I 
buffet my body, and bring it into bondage : lest by 
any means, after that I have preached to others, I 
myself should be rejected'^ (rather, be disap- 
proved). Now this might seem to imply a fear on 
PauPs part that even after his faithful work he 



82 VALUE OF PROPER BIBLE STUDY 

might be lost (taking the exact force of the words 
and looking up their Biblical usage, we find that 
the verse even when taken alone cannot possibly 
teach this), but there are numerous passages in 
the Bible which make it plain as day that Paul 
entertained no fear whatever of such a character. 
He says in 2 Tim. 1 :12, R. V. : ^'For which cause I 
suffer also these things : yet I am not ashamed ; for 
I know him whom I have believed, and I am per- 
suaded that he is able to guard that which I have 
committed unto him against that day," And he 
says in 2 Tim. 4:18, R. V., ''The Lord will deliver 
me from every evil work, and will save me unto his 
heavenly kingdom : to whom be the glory for ever 
and ever. ' ' And our Lord Jesus Christ distinctly 
said in John 10:28, R. V., *^I give unto them eter- 
nal life ; and they shall never perish y and no one 
shall snatch them out of my hand,'' And in 1 John 
2 :19, R. v., John says, ' ' They went out from us, 
but they were not of us ; for if they had been of us, 
they would have continued with us: but they went 
out, that they might be made manifest that they 
all are not of us,'' thus distinctly teaching that 
when one is really bom again he will not fall away. 

XI, Interpret Any Passage in the Bible as Those 
Who Were Addressed Would Have Understood It 

The eleventh principle of correct Biblical in- 
terpretation is. Interpret Any Passage in the Bible 
as Those Who Were Addressed Would Have 



HOW TO INTEEPRET THE BIBLE 83 

Understood It. Words that were addressed to 
any people were intended to be understood hy 
them. There may be exceptions to this principle, 
but they are rare. An illustration of an exception 
is found in John 2:19, R. V., where he says, ** De- 
stroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it 
up.'^ John tells us Jesus was speaking of the tem- 
ple of His body, but the Jews would not have so 
understood it. In this case our Lord Jesus was not 
speaking for the present moment but for the days 
that were to come. This John explains in the 
22nd verse where he says, '^When therefore he 
was raised from the dead, his disciples remem- 
bered that He spake this; and they believed the 
scripture, and the word which Jesus had said." 
In interpreting the Bible we need to have a 
knowledge of the times and places and customs 
where the words were spoken. For example, our 
Lord said to Peter in Matt. 16:19, E. V., *^I will 
give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven : 
and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be 
bound in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose 
on earth shall be loosed in heaven.'^ Now this was 
perfectly understood by those to whom he said 
it, because they knew the customs of the day. 
When one graduated from one of the Eabbinical 
classes, he was given by the Eabbi a *^key" to 
indicate that he was now ready to open the secrets 
of the kingdom; and so our Lord promised to 
Peter *Hhe keys of the kingdom of heaven" to in- 
dicate that Peter would be able to open the truth 



84 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

of the kingdom of heaven to men. We see Peter 
using the keys with the Jews on the day of Pente- 
cost and with the Gentiles in the household of 
Cornelius. There was another well-known usage 
of the day that explains the remainder of the 
verse. The words *^bind and loose'' were used 
constantly of the Eabbis as referring to * ^forbid- 
ding and permitting. ' ' For example, Shammai, a 
very strict Rabbi, was said to *^bind," or *^for- 
bid'' what Hillel, a more generous and liberal 
Rabbi, was said to ^^ loose," or *^ permit." 

Z7/. Interpret What Belongs to the Christian, 

as Belonging to the Christian; What Belongs 

to the Jew, as Belonging to the Jew, and 

What Belongs to the Gentiles, as 

Belonging to the Gentiles 

The twelfth principle of correct Biblical inter- 
pretation is, Interpret What Belongs to the Chris- 
tian, as Belonging to the Christian, What Belongs 
to the Jew, as Belonging to the Jew, and What 
Belongs to the Gentiles, as Belonging to the Gen- 
tiles. One of the commonest causes of misinter- 
pretation of the Bible is the taking what is said, 
or what applies, to one class of people and apply- 
ing it to another class. Take, for example, Rom. 
8:35, R. v., ''Who shall separate us from the love 
of Christ? shall tribulation, or anguish, or perse- 
cution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or 



HOW TO INTERPEET THE BIBLE 85 

sword?'' Now this is distinctly said, as the con- 
text clearly shows, of the believer, of the one who 
is ^^foreordained," *^ called," ** justified." Many 
take it as teaching that nothing can separate any- 
hody *'froni the love of Christ." It teaches 
nothing of the kind. 

XIII, Interpret Each Writer vnth a View to the 
Opinions the Writer Opposed 

The thirteenth principle of correct Biblical in- 
terpretation is, Interpret Each Writer with a 
View to the Opinions the Writer Opposed. That 
is to say, in interpreting Panl, when he is opposing 
the Judaizing tendencies in certain circles of his 
day, we should bear that in mind in interpreting 
his epistles; for example, in interpreting the 
Epistle to the Romans and the Epistle to the Ga- 
latians. When we are interpreting James, we 
should bear in mind that he was opposing the 
antinomians of his day, those who taught that 
if a man believed correctly about Christ, he was 
under no moral obligations, he could live as he 
pleased and yet be a saved man. In interpreting 
John in his First Epistle, we should bear in mind 
that he was opposing the gnostics of his day who 
were degrading Christianity by combining it with 
a fantastic philosophy, very like to the philosophy 
of ** Christian Science," and in some forms of 
Gnosticism the philosophy of * ' Theosophy. " 



86 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

XIV. Interpret Poetry as Poetry and Interpret 
Prose as Prose 

The fourteenth principle of correct Biblical in- 
terpretation is, Interpret Poetry as Poetry, and 
Interpret Prose as Prose, For example, in in- 
terpreting the 18th Psalm, we should bear in mind 
that it is largely highly poetical, a remarkably 
vivid, poetic description of a thunderstorm in 
which God put forth His power in defense of His 
servant. The highly poetical character of the 
Psalm should be kept in mind in interpreting the 
Psalm; for example, the 8th verse, ** There went 
up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his 
mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it." Now 
this is not to be taken literally as representing 
God as a Being out of whose nose literally there 
poured forth smoke and fire out of His mouth. 
It is a wonderfully vivid and highly poetical de- 
scription of a thunderstorm. Some people have 
no poetic sense and do everything in a matter-of- 
fact way. The story is told of aj^aan of this hope- 
lessly prosaic type of mind who read the well- 
known verse, ' ^ There are books in brooks, sermons 
in stones and good in everything, ' ' and he at once 
made this criticism ^^that is not what the writer 
meant to say. What he meant to say was that 
there are sermons in books, stones in brooks and 
good in everything." Poetry should be inter- 
preted as poetry. That is not to say it does not 
mean what it says, but it says it in a figurative way 



HOW TO INTEKPRET THE BIBLE 87 

and sometimes in a vividly pictorial way, that 
represents an idea by a picture. 

But while we interpret poetry as poetry, we 
should interpret prose as prose. It is just as 
grave a breach of every sensible law of interpre- 
tation to interpret prose as poetry as it is to in- 
terpret poetry as prose. This is one of the out- 
standing faults of many of the so-called *^ mod- 
em" interpreters of the Bible. They find a state- 
ment in the Bible that is evidently prose, but it 
contains a truth they do not wish to accept and 
they at once say, **this is figurative." They criti- 
cize those *^ stupid" people who interpret poetry 
as prose but do not realize they are open to just 
as grave criticism for interpreting prose as 
poetry. 

XV, The Holy Spirit Is the Best Interpreter of 
the Bible 

The fifteenth principle of correct Biblical in- 
terpretation is, The Holy Spirit Is the Best In- 
terpreter of the Bible, The best interpreter of 
any book is the author of the book, and the Holy 
Spirit is beyond any honest question the Author 
of the Bible: '*no prophecy ever came by the will 
of man; but men spake from God, being moved 
(more literally, being *borne along,' or * carried 
along') by the Holy Spirit." (2 Pet. 1:21, E. V.) 
This being true, of course it admits of no question 
that the Holy Spirit is the best interpreter of the 



88 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

Bible, and the man who in his study of the Word 
seeks and obtains the illumination of the Holy 
Spirit is a far more dependable interpreter of the 
Word than the greatest scholar on earth who is not 
illumined by the Holy Spirit. As we pointed out 
last Sunday, ^^the natural man receive th not the 
things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolish- 
ness unto him; and he cannot know them, because 
they are spiritually judged." (1 Cor. 2:14, E. V.) 
Therefore, no matter how well founded one's 
claims to scholarship may be, if he is not a Spirit- 
taught man his interpretations of the Word of God 
are absolutely valueless. The humblest and most 
uneducated Christian here who is taught by the 
Spirit of God w'ould be a far more competent and 
reliable interpreter of the scripture than the 
greatest university professor, or theological pro- 
fessor, on earth who was not in right relations to 
God and, therefore, was not taught by the Spirit 
of God. Our Lord Jesus said to His disciples on 
the night before His crucifixion, ^^Howbeit when 
Ee, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you 
into all the truth" (John 16:13, E. V.). Now 
while this promise was made primarily to the 
apostles and is a guarantee of their inspiration and 
their absolute dependability as teachers, it also be- 
longs in a lesser way to the individual believer. 
John, the beloved disciple, himself applies it to the 
believer. He says in 1 John 2 :27, E. V. : '* And as 
for you, the anointing which ye received (i. e., the 
Holy Spirit) of Him (i. e., from Christ) abideth in 



HOW TO INTERPEET THE BIBLE 89 

you, and ye need not that any one teach you; but as 
His anointing teacheth you concerning all things/* 
So in your study of the Bible, in your eager desire 
to discover its true meaning, your determination 
to find out the exact mind of God, as He has re- 
vealed it in His Word, above all else seek the 
GUIDANCE OF THE HoLY SpmiT. The Way to get His 
guidance is to ask for it. Our Lord Jesus Himself 
said, *'If ye then, being evil, know how to give 
good gifts unto your children, how much more 
shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit 
to them that ash Him/' (Luke 11 :13, R. V.) How 
often you have thought as you have heard some 
Bible teacher who has been especially helpful to 
you, * * Oh, if I could only go to that man every day 
and have him for my teacher, I would make some 
progress in the knowledge of the things of God." 
But every time you open your Bible alone by your- 
self, you can have a far more competent and skill- 
ful teacher than any human Bible teacher this 
world ever saw. You may have the Author of the 
Book to interpret it to you, and the greatest of 
all secrets of true interpretation of the Word of 
God is to have the Spirit of God for your inter- 
preter of the Word. And if you are in right rela- 
tions to God, trusting in the finished work of Jesus 
Christ as the sole ground of your acceptance be- 
fore God, looking to the Risen Christ to give you 
daily victory over sin, absolutely surrendered in 
your will and your affections and in your thoughts 
to the will and mind of God, and then ask the Holy 



90 yALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

Spirit each time you open the Word, to come and 
interpret it to yon, and really mean it, and are 
whole-heartedly willing to accept and act upon 
what the Holy Spirit will show you, you may have 
the Holy Spirit as your Interpreter every time 
you open the Book. 



I 



i 



CHAPTEE IV 

THE SEVEN GREAT PROMISES OF GOD FOE THE 
BIBLE STUDENT AND SOUL-WINNER 

I have turned over the matter in my mind for 
some weeks as to what subject I should speak 
upon this morning to the Graduating Class. I 
thought it was pretty well settled in my mind that 
I should speak on 2 Tim. 4:5, **Make full proof of 
thy ministry." But not many days ago I was so 
stirred by reading a book entitled ** Modem Ee- 
ligious Liberalism'' that I was strongly disposed 
to speak on *^What to Do with the Bible," and 
had the sermon outlined in my mind. But when 
I went to God in definite prayer about it last Mon- 
day afternoon. He gave me the subject *' The Seven 
Great Promises of God for the Bible Student and 
Soul-winner. ' ' For two years you have been dili- 
gently studying the Bible under the direction and 
encouragement of some of the best known students 
and teachers of the Bible in the world, and you 
have been studying it, not merely that you might 
get as complete an intellectual mastery of it as 
possible, but that you might find equipment for 
the most glorious work in the world, that of soul- 
winning. But you certainly are not foolish enough 
to think that your studies are now at an end. Only 

91 



92 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

a hopeless fool could fancy for a moment that 
two years of study anywhere, or under any teach- 
ers that ever lived, could exhaust this Book in 
which are hidden the infinite and inexhaustible 
treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God. 
Your Bible studies are just begun. Bible study is 
to be your life-long employment, and you are going 
out to wear yourselves out in the great work for 
which you have been preparing — soul-winning. 
You are not all to be foreign missionaries, or min- 
isters of the Grospel at home, but you are to be 
soul-winners all your days; some in the foreign 
field; some in large churches, some in small 
churches, and some in obscure and neglected un- 
churched fields at home ; and some of you in that 
most hallowed of all fields of soul-winning, upon 
which the Bible lays so much emphasis, the Chris- 
tian home. But all of you, by the good hand of 
God upon you, are to be soul-winners. So I can 
think of no more appropriate subject for this most 
joyous, and at the same time most solemn, occa- 
sion than that which I have announced, The Seven 
Great Promises of God for the Bible Student and 
Soul-winner. 

7. The First Great Promise 

The first Great Promise is from Psalm 1:1-3: 
^'Blessed is the man that walJceth not in the 
coumsel of the v/ngodlyj nor stcmdeth in the way 
of sinners, nor sitteth m the seat of the scorn- 



SEVEN GREAT PROMISES OF GOD 93 

fvl. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and 
in his law doth he meditate day and night. 
And he shall he like a tree planted hy the rivers 
of water, that hringeth forth his fruit in his 
season; his leaf also shall not wither; and what- 
soever he doeth shall prosper.'' Please look at 
that promise steadily and with open eyes and clear 
eyes until you take in its wonderful meaning, 
*' Blessed is the man that walketh not in the coun- 
sel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of 
sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 
But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in 
his law doth he meditate day and night. And he 
shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, 
that bringeth forth his fruit in his season ; his leaf 
also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth 
shall prosper.'' God here promises to the Bible 
student and the would-be Soul-winner, that if he 
meets one of the fundamental conditions of profit- 
able Bible study, thorough-going separation from 
the world, not walking in the counsel of the un- 
godly, nor standing in the way of sinners, nor 
sitting in the seat of the scornful, and then medi- 
tates in God^s own Law, the revealed will of God, 
as found in this Book, which is demonstrably "the 
Word of God" (Mark 7:13; 1 Thess. 2:13), medi- 
tates in it day and night, then he shall be a fruitful 
tree, a constantly, perpetually fruitful tree, a well- 
watered tree, watered by the streams of life that 
flow from the throne of God through the channels 
of this wonderful Book, and that **whatsoeveb he 



94 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

DOETH SHALL PROSPER. ' ' What an amazing promise ! 
What a stupendous promise! And what an all- 
sufficient promise for the Bible student who is 
about to enter upon his life work. Young men 
and women, you certainly long for a good share 
of prosperity, but, oh! to think of it, that there 
is a way to make sure of it, that everything you 
may do in these coming days and years shall 
prosper. If any one in your position can face 
a promise like that and not have to put forth some 
effort to keep from shouting I can hardly under- 
stand it. 

Be Sure You Meet the Conditions of the Fulfill- 
ment of the Promise. 

1. The first condition is separation from the 
world in all your conduct, not walking **in the 
counsel'' (or, advice) of those who are not fully 
surrendered to God, not standing in the way that 
sinners go, nor sitting down *^in the seat of the 
scornful," or *^ scoffers,'' as the Revised Version 
translates, and this includes all ^^ Higher Critics" 
and ^^New Theology" men and other infidels, 
whose chief stock in trade is making light of what 
God Himself says and of the most fundamental 
and precious doctrines of our faith. If you find 
yourseff located in some ^^seat'' of learning where, 
as at the Chicago University, they make light of 
the precious truths of God (that is the exact force 
of the Hebrew word translated ** scornful" in the 
Authorized Version and ' ' scoffers ' ' in the Revised 



SEVEN GREAT PROMISES OF GOD 95 

Version), get up out of that **seaf right off, do 
not ^'sit in the seat of scoffers.*' 

2. And the second condition is, that you medi- 
tate in God^s Word day and night, that is, that 
you deeply, profoundly, continuously ponder the 
revelation God has made in this Book; that you 
not merely study the Bible for a quarter of an 
hour or a half hour or even an hour every day, 
but that you store up in your mind and heart what 
you there find and ponder it day and night. Young 
men and women, never forget that. There will be 
a great pressure of work upon you in the coming 
days, and many books and papers and magazines 
and reviews will clamor for your attention, but 
stoutly and steadfastly refuse to let either the 
demands of service or of other literature than the 
Bible crowd out the precious Word of God, medi- 
tation day and night upon which, and upon which 
alone, spells prosperity in everything you under- 
take. 

Why is it that so many missionaries and min- 
isters and other Christian workers are so little 
prospered? The answer is found right here, be- 
cause they give so little time to actually medi- 
tating upon the Word of God; because they let 
work or other lines of study crowd out the Word 
of God, or else they ponder it without that clear- 
ness of vision that comes from clear-cut separa- 
tion from the world and from all *^ modernists" 
and other scoffers. 



9S VALUE OF PROPER BIBLE STUDY 

II. The Second Great Promise 

The second Great Promise of God for the 
Bible Student and Soul-winner is Daniel 12:3: 
'^ And they that he wise shall shine as the bright- 
ness of the firmament; and they that turn 
m<my to righteousness as the stars for ever and 
ever/* This is a great promise for Bible students 
as well as for Soul-winners, for it is only the 
Bible student who is really ^^wise.'^ It is the 
^* entrance of Grod's words'' that ^^giveth light;'* 
that ^^giveth understanding unto the simple" 
(Psalm 119:130). No one can be truly wise, wise 
with real wisdom, the wisdom that counts for 
eternity, as well as time, unless he is a Bible stu- 
dent. So Grod tells us in this striking promise that 
the Bible student shall ** shine as the brightness 
of the firmament" and the Soul-urinner ^^as the 
stars forever and ever." Every red-blooded man 
and every woman who is worth while longs to 
shine. If you did not wish to shine for your own 
sake, you ought to have a great ambition to shine 
for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake. He Himself 
bids us shine. He says in Matt. 5 :14, 16, *^ Ye are 
the light of the world. . . . Let your light so shine 
before men, that they may see your good works, 
and glorify your Father which is in heaven,*' 
Well, this promise tells us how to shine, how to 
gloriously shine, how to shine, not for the few 



SEVEN GREAT PROMISES OF GOD 97 

brief days of this fleeting life that now is, but 
**forever and ever.*' Be a Bible student, a Real 
Bible Student, and be a Soul- winner; for *Hhey 
that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the 
firmament ; and they that turn many to righteous- 
ness as the stars forever and ever.'* Oh, that 
large but foolish company of men and women, 
including not a few ministers and theological 
teachers and writers, who wish to shine down 
here, to have a cheap reputation for ** advanced 
scholarship,'' forgetting that the history of the 
world and the church is forever demonstrating 
that the ^^ advanced scholarship" of to-day is the 
ridiculous nonsense of to-morrow. Young men 
and women, listen, it is not worth while to shine 
down here, to get all sorts of degrees and titles 
attached to your name because you are untrue to 
God and His inspired Word. Look back and see 
how the shores of past time are strewed with the 
whitened wrecks of men who shone in an apostate 
church. No, do not care a fig to shine as a great 
*' pulpit orator," or *^ pulpit humorist," or pulpit 
mountebank, or a pulpit comforter by holding out 
false hopes to those who desire to live careless 
and worldly and pleasure-seeking lives; it does 
not pay to shine down here, even as a **golden- 
tongued pulpit orator." It does pay to shine up 
yonder, to ^ ^ shine as the stars forever and ever. ' ' 
And there is only one way to shine up yonder, 
by being a Real Bible Student and a Soul-winner. 



98 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

///. The Third Great Promise 

The third Great Promise of God for the Bible 
Student and Soul-winner you will find in Psalm 
126:6: ^^He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing 
precious seed, shall doubtless come again with 
rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him/' Here 
is another promise that stirs the alert and 
intelligent soul to its very depths. What intelli- 
gent harvester does not long to come home 
laden down with mighty sheaves of golden grain? 
But what other harvest is so desirable as the 
harvest of precious souls 1 This, too, is a promise, 
as we shall see shortly, for both the Bible Student 
and Soul-winner, a Soul-winner just because he 
is a Bible student. It tells us how to come, when 
our brief but laborious harvest time is over, bring- 
ing our golden sheaves with us. Listen, *^He that 
goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, 
shall doubtless come again with rejoicing bring- 
ing his sheaves with him." Just three conditions 
of a bountiful harvest: ** goeth forth," ** weep- 
eth," ** bearing precious seed." Let me change 
the order. 

1. First, ^* Bearing precious seed." What the 
** precious seed" is that must be borne if we are 
to reap an abundant harvest of the right sort, 
our Lord Jesus Himself tells us in Luke 8:11, 
* * The seed is the Word of God. ' ' That is the only 



SEVEN GREAT PROMISES OF GOD 99 

seed that is worth sowing, or that will bring a 
harvest of souls. Men are bom again, Peter tells 
us, **not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, 
by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for- 
ever.'* (1 Pet. 1 :23.) To sow the Word, we must 
know the Word; so you can see how this is a 
promise for the Bible student as well as for the 
Soul- winner. The Revised Version reads in place 
of '^precious seed,'' *^seed for sowing/' and the 
Hebrew words mean just that or **a sowing of 
seed;" and the only seed that is fit for *^ sowing" 
in the prepared soil of the human heart is god's 
WORD. Here, too, we see why it is so many 
preachers and missionaries and personal workers 
gather such scant harvests ; they are sowing some- 
thing beside the Word of God. Go listen to many 
sermons and note how little there is of the un- 
mixed seed of the Word of God in them, so much 
bull's-eye daisies and chess and Canada thistles 
of man's notions and vagaries and speculations 
and conceits mixed in, until their churches look 
like some alleged *^ wheat fields" that we see, full 
of daisies, mustard, **the devil's paint-brush," 
Canada thistles and bull thistles and nettles. Oh, 
young men and women, always bear the ** precious 
seed" of God's Word and only that. If some one 
tells you it won't draw like poetry and moonshine 
and ^* advanced thought" and movies, think of 
Moody and Spurgeon and some of the things your 
own eyes have seen these past months in this very 
building and elsewhere. 



100 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

2. Then note the words, ''goeth forth,'' ''He 
that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious 
seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, 
bringing his sheaves with him. ' ' It is not enough 
to have the seed, go sow it. Sow it far and wide, 
throughout America, not forgetting the neglected 
fields, through China, through Japan, through 
Africa, through India, everywhere. It is not the 
seed the farmer has in his granary that brings a 
harvest, but the seed he sows in his field; and it 
is not the truth you know, hut the truth you sow 
that will hear a harvest. Remember it is **seed 
for sowing'' (R. V.), and the truth you have 
learned from the study of God^s Word here and 
the truth you shall learn in your future study of 
the Word is ''seed for sowing." Never forget 
that. Many a man who knows little gathers a far 
more abundant harvest than many who know 
much, for what little he knows he assiduously 
sows. 

3. And once more in regard to this promise: 
Note the words, "and weepeth." It is not enough 
to know the Word of God and it is not enough to 
sow the Word of God : if you would have a boun- 
teous harvest, if you would come *^ bringing your 
sheaves with'' you, you must as you sow the seed, 
water it with your tears. Not only does the Word 
of God teach, but experience also abundantly 
proves that it is the Word of God that is given 
with a heart full of love for sinners, a love that 
shows itself in tears of sympathy for the sinner's 



SEVEN GREAT PROMISES OF GOD 101 

sorrows and tears of pain over the sinner's sin 
and stubbornness, that bears fruit in souls saved. 
Here is where many missionaries in the foreign 
field fail and many preachers at home fail; they 
have no deep heartfelt love that leads to tears for 
those to whom they preach and with whom they 
work. One of the mightiest Soul-winners among 
the outcast that this country ever saw was Col. 
George Clark, the founder of the Pacific Garden 
Mission in Chicago. Col. Clark worked faithfully 
at his business six days of the week that he might 
preach the Gospel without pay seven nights in the 
week. Every night they would gather in the Pa- 
cific Garden Mission, four or five hundred men, 
mostly of the down-and-out class. They would 
hang upon every word Col. Clark spoke, though 
he was not an interesting speaker, indeed a very 
ordinary and commonplace speaker. I never 
heard him give an original thought in all my life, 
and yet those outcasts would sit all the evening 
and hang upon his words. Some of the most bril- 
liant speakers in America would go there, but 
could not hold that crowd, but Col. Clark always 
could. I studied these strange phenomena and 
finally found the explanation of them. They knew 
that Col. Clark loved them, that he would give his 
last penny for them, that he would wear his life 
out for them, as he actually did. Col. Clark was a 
man much given to tears as he spoke. He was a 
large, powerful man, weighing perhaps 250 
pounds, and tears from such a man seemed out 



102 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

of place, and after a while he became ashamed of 
his many tears and held them back. But he found 
that with the drying up of his tears he lost his 
power; and he went to God and cried, *^0h, God, 
give me back my tears, ' ' and God gave him back 
his tears and gave him back his power. Young 
men and women, cultivate a real, heartfelt love 
for those among whom you work. Ask the Holy 
Spirit to make real to you their lost condition and 
to make vivid to you their coming doom if they 
are not saved. It is not the one who knows the 

MOST BUT THE ONE WHO LOVES THE MOST WHO WINS 

THE MOST. I think I would make a good mission- 
ary to the Chinese, for I love the Chinese; I con- 
fess I love them more than I do any other people. 
But look to God to give you a tear-bringing love 
for any people among whom you work. 



IV. The Fourth Great Promise 

The fourth Great Promise of God for the Bible 
Student and Soul-winner you will find in James 
1:5, R. v.: ''If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask 
of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and up- 
braideth not; and it shall be given him," This, 
too, is a great promise for the Bible student 
and Soul-winner. To be a successful student of 
the Word one needs ''wisdom" and to be a 
successful Soul-winner, one needs great "wis- 
dom" and tact. This promise tells how to get 



SEVEN GREAT PROMISES OF GOD 103 

this wisdom, ash for it, '*If any of you lack 
wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men 
liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall he given 
him/' What to do is put in one word, ''ask;'' 
definite, believing prayer. The next two verses 
say, * * But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting ; 
for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea 
driven by the wind and tossed. For let not that 
man think that he shall receive anything of the 
Lord.'* Our promise tells us very clearly of 
Whom to ask. It is put in two words, ^^of God." 
Be very clear about that. There is much asking 
that is not really ''of God." Men pray, but they 
do not really get into the presence of God, and 
''ask of Him.'* Be sure you do every time you 
pray. 

And note carefully of what God to ask, the 
"God, Who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth 
not." There is only one God who does that, the 
God and Father of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus 
Christ. There is much that is called praying in 
these days that is not unto Him. Prof. Theodore 
Gerald Soares, Professor of Homiletics and Re- 
ligious Education and Head of the Department of 
Practical Theology at the University of Chicago, 
says, "The mental state of peace, exultation and 
resolution which issue upon the exercise of prayer 
are due to the release of conscious tension." That 
certainly is not praying to the ' ' God, Who giveth 
to all men liberally and upbraideth not," even if 
the writer is a theological professor. President 



104 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

Gr. Stanley Hall, of Clark University, Worcester, 
Mass., says that prayer is '* communion with the 
deeper racial self within ns." That certainly is 
not asking of the **God, Who giveth to all men 
liberally and npbraideth not. ' ' Prof. George Bur- 
man Foster, who was for a while professor in the 
theological department of Chicago University, 
and then Professor of Philosophy of Eeligion 
in another department in the University up to the 
time of his death, said, ^^the only prayer which 
we have a moral right to pray is precisely the 
prayer which after all we ourselves must answer. ' ' 
That certainly is not asking of the **God, Who 
giveth to all men liberally and npbraideth not.'' 
Prof. Edward Scribner Ames, Associate Pro- 
fessor of Chicago University, and Pastor of 
Hyde Park Church of Disciples of Christ, in his 
book, *'The New Orthodoxy," says, **For the 
modem man standing erect in his pride of power, 
the old ceremony full of passivity and surrender 
is a symbol of a dyimg age J' That certainly is 
not asking of the *^God, Who giveth to all men lib- 
erally and npbraideth not. ' ' Prof. Gerald Bimey 
Smith, at the present time *' Professor of Chris- 
tian Theology'^ at the Chicago University, says, 
''the worship of God in a democracy will consist 
in reverence for those human values which de- 
mocracy makes supreme.'^ That certainly is not 
asking of the ^^God, Who giveth to all liberally 
and npbraideth not." I would as soon think of 
sending a son of mine to a smallpox hospital as a 



SEVEN GREAT PROMISES OF GOD 105 

health resort as to send him to a theological Sem- 
inary or University where such blasphemous folly 
as that is taught, as a preparation for an efficient 
ministry or for missionary work. Are our Bap- 
tists, Methodists and Presbyterians gone mad that 
they send their children to institutions where such 
wicked, blasphemous and practically atheistic 
things are taught f But real Prayer to a Real. God, 
the only true God, the God and Father of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ, brings wondrous wis- 
dom in the study of the Word of God and in Soul- 
winning. No other shovel digs so deep into the 
gold mine of God's Word and throws out such 
nuggets of pure gold as prayer, real prayer to a 
real God. No other rain-maker will so operate 
upon the clouds of God's abundant grace that 
always overhang us and bring down such mighty 
outpourings of the Holy Spirit manifesting them- 
selves in a multitude of souls won as real prayer 
to a real God. Never forget that. Never, never, 

NEVER FORGET THAT. 

F. The Fifth Great Promise 

This naturally and inevitably brings us to 
the Fifth Great Promise of God for the Bible 
Student and Soul-vAnner. You will find it 
in Acts 1:8: ^'Ye shall receive power, after the 
Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall he 
witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all 
Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost 



106 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

part of the earth.'' The great need of missionary, 
minister and personal worker, and father and 
mother, when they study God's Word and when 
they go out to win souls, is power, power to pene- 
trate the sacred cloisters of Grod's Word where 
such abundant treasures of truth are stored and 
power to present to others the truth discovered 
in such a way as to convict of sin and reveal Jesus 
Christ and to bring men to accept Jesus as their 
Lord and Saviour and thus be born again. This 
verse reveals the great secret of that power: **Ye 
shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is 
come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto 
me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in 
Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the 
earth.'' We need power, a power not from this 
earth, not from human culture, not the power 
learned in schools of oratory, nor the power that 
comes from the tricks of the world, baptized with 
Christian names, as in the ^ * Inter church World 
Movement," not the power to draw crowds 
learned from Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford 
or Charlie Chaplin, and crystallized in the intro- 
duction of the movies into the Sunday evening 
service, turning the sacred house of God into a 
third-class Sunday theatrical performance. No! 
No!! No!!! ^^ POWER FROM ON HIGH" 
(Luke 24:49). This promise tells us how to get 
it. It tells us how any graduate of the Bible In- 
stitute, or any child of God, can get it. Listen 
again, ^^Ye shall receive power, after that the 



SEVEN GREAT PROMISES OF GOD 107 

Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be 
witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all 
Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost 
part of the earth;'' the definite baptism with 
THE Holy Spirit, of which Peter said on the day of 
Pentecost, immediately after he himself had been 
'* baptized with the Holy Spirit," *^For the prom- 
ise is unto you, and to your children, and to all 
that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our 
God shall call unto Him. ' ' 

VI, The Sixth Great Promise 

This then leads us directly to the Sixth 
Great Promise of God for the Bible Student 
and Soul-unnner. You will find it in Luke 
11:13: '^If ye then, being evil, know how to give 
good gifts unto your children: how much more 
shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit 
to them that ask him/' The fifth promise tells us, 
that ** power from on High,'' power right from 
God, God's own power, will be upon us after the 
Holy Spirit comes upon us, and the sixth promise 
tells us how to make sure of the Holy Spirit com- 
ing upon you, ^^If ye then, being evil, know how 
to give good gifts unto your children : how much 
more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy 
Spirit to them that ask Him." The way is very 
simple, just ''ask," '^ask him," that is, God, the 
only true God, the ** Heavenly Father," not the 
God that ''is imminent in humanity" of which 



108 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE ^STUDY 

these wise New Theologists prate, but ^^the God 
and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ/' ^^Who is in Heaven, '^ the Real God, the 
God who actually isj and not the God of man's 
mad imaginings. Prof. Walter Rauschenbusch, 
now dead (died in 1918), formerly Professor of 
Church History in Rochester Theological Sem- 
inary, a Baptist institution, said, ^Hhe old con- 
ception that God ... is distinct from our human 
life" must give way to *'the religious belief that 
He is immanent in humanity." Do not ask for 
the Holy Spirit of such a God as that, ask of the 
Real God, your ^* Father in heaven." Prof. Royce, 
late of Harvard University, says, ^Hhe divine is 
no more separate and aloof. It is within and or- 
ganic with the human. ' ' The same thought is else- 
where put in these words, *^God is considered as 
the soul of the world, the spirit animating nature, 
the universal force which takes the myriad forms 
of heat, light, gravitation, electricity and the 
like." Do not ask any such God as that to give 
you the Holy Spirit. You might as well pray to 
a Hindoo or Chinese idol or an Alaskan totem. 
Prof. Gerald Birney Smith, Professor of Chris- 
tian Theology at the present time in Chicago 
University, speaks of God as *Vthe spiritual forces 
of the world in which we live, the unseen forces of 
the universe." Do not ask that God for the Holy 
Spirit. Prof. Royce defines God as the immanent 
* * spirit of the community. ' ' Do not ask that God 
for the Holy Spirit. No, do not pray to the God 



SEVEN GREAT PROMISES OF GOD 109 

of any of this sort of theological Seminary and 
University professors who, *^ professing them- 
selves to be wise/' have '^become fools.'' (Rom. 
1:22.) Pray to the eeal God the God Whom the 
Lord Jesus revealed in His words and in His Per- 
son, our ** Heavenly Father," the God Who really 
is and really answers prayer, and if you really are 
His child, He will answer and He will baptize you 
and fill you with His Holy Spirit, and you will 
have power, and no man will be *^able to resist 
the wisdom and the Spirit by which (you) speak." 
(Acts 6:10.) 

F7Z. The Seventh Great Promise 

Now we come to the seventh and last Great 
Promise of God for the Bible Student and 
Soul-winner^ a/nd in some respects it is the 
best of alL It is the direct outcome of the 
sixth promise and closely related to the fifth 
and fourth promises. You mil find it in Matt, 
28:19, 20, R. V.: ''Go ye therefore, and make 
disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the 
name of the Father and of the Son and of the 
Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I a/m with 
you always, even unto the end of the world,'' Oh, 
what a promise! The promise of the personal 
presence of our Lord Jesus Himself with us all 
the time, ** until the consummation of the age," 
when He will come visibly and bodily to take us 



110 VALUE OF PROPEE BIBLE STUDY 

to be with Himself forever. He is now our unseen 
Lord (1 Pet. 1:8) up yonder in the glory, inter- 
ceding for us (Heb. 7 :25), taking up our case, and 
advocating it and carrying it through. But He 
is also, even now, our peesent lord. It is the work 
of the Holy Spirit, when He comes to us, to form 
within us an indwelling Christ. The Lord Jesus 
Himself said to His disciples the night before He 
left them, in John 14:15-23, R. V. : ^^If ye love me, 
ye will keep my commandments. And I will pray 
the Father, and he shall give you another Com- 
forter, that he may be with you forever, even the 
Spirit of truth: whom the world cannot receive; 
for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him : ye 
know him ; for he abideth with you and shall be in 
you. I will not leave you desolate: 1 come unto 
you: Yet a little while, and the world beholdeth me 
no more ; but ye behold me : because I live, ye shall 
live also. In that day ye shall know that I am in 
my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that 
hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it 
is that loveth me : and he that loveth me shall be 
loved of my Father, and I will love him and will 
manifest myself unto him. Judas (not Iscariot) 
saith unto him. Lord, what is come to pass that 
thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto 
the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, 
If a man love me, he will keep my word : and my 
Father will love him, and we will come unto him, 
and malie our abode with him.^' Yes, He is really 
with us, not visibly as in that glad coming day 



SEVEN GREAT PROMISES OF GOD 111 

He will be, but nonetheless, really and conscious 
ly with us. Young men and women, as you leave 
these halls and these friendships with the Faculty 
and your fellow-students that have become so 
precious to you, you will have many lonely hours 
and lonely days and lonely weeks. I think the 
loneliest day I ever saw up to that time was 
the day I graduated at Yale and left the city on a 
late boat for New York. Most of my class took 
earlier trains. It seemed as if I would almost 
die of loneliness. Forty-six years have passed, 
but the memory of the misery of that night lingers 
with me yet. And you will have lonely days. And 
when you get into the heart of China and into the 
heart of Africa and into Indian jungles, you will 
see lonely days. But you need not see lonely days, 
you need not see a lonely hour, or a lonely minute. 
By day and by night, you may have the dearest 
and best and most satisfying of all companions, 
our glorious Lord Jesus Himself. Listen again to 
this crowning promise of all: *^Go ye therefore, 
and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing 
them into the name of the Father and of the Son 
and of the Holy Spirit : teaching them to observe 
all things whatsoever I command you: and lo, I 
am with you always ^ even unto the consummation 
of the age." Ah, this coming summer when some 
night I am up alone on the Yangtze or elsewhere, 
out in some lonely mountain or desert plain, I 
might be lonely, but I won't, Jesus will be there 



112 VALUE OF PEOPER BIBLE STUDY 

and He will be with you too if you meet the 
conditions. 

Note these conditions well, ^^Go ye therefore, 
and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing 
them into the name of the Father and of the Son 
and of the Holy Spirit : teaching them to observe 
all things whatsoever I commanded yon: and lo, 
I am with yon always, even nnto the consumma- 
tion of the age.'' If you go out into all the world 
making disciples, going as far as your line may ex- 
tend, be it eighteen miles or eighteen thousand 
miles. He will go with you. But if you do not 
listen sharply for His call, and go as far as He 
bids you go. He will not go with you. If we go 
His way. He will go ours ; but if we do not go His 
way, He will not go ours. If Grod says Africa, and 
your foolish heart says Southern California, He 
will not go with you : and amid the dearest friends 
on earth, you will be supremely lonely. But if 
you say with Isaiah of old when the Lord Jesus 
calls, and He is calling now, ^^Here am I; send 
me'' (Isa. 6:8) He will send and He will go along. 
You may be alone beneath the silent stars on some 
African table-land, but you wiU not be alone. He, 
our glorious Lord will walk by your side. And He 
is enough. And you will walk with Him forever ; 
for He hath said, **If any man serve me, let him 
follow me; and where I am, there shall also my 
servant he: if any man serve me, him will the 
Father honor." (John 12:26.) 

Young men and women of the Graduating Class : 



SEVEN GEEAT PROMISES OF GOD 113 

You have been here at the Bible Institute of 
Los Angeles two years. You have worked hard. 
You have done well. You have made satisfac- 
tory progress in your study of the Word of God, 
in your Christian character and in your work for 
Christ. You have won the confidence and respect 
and love of every member of the Faculty, and I 
think we can rest confident that we have won your 
love, as well as your confidence. You are about 
to leave us, we are sorry to have you go, we shall 
greatly miss you. When I come back next Novem- 
ber and look out over the seats in the lecture room, 
my first impulse will be to look for the faces that 
I know so well and to listen for the voices that I 
have learned to distinguish from one another, and 
I shall miss you and every member of the Faculty 
will miss you. But we are glad you are going. 
There was never in all this world's history such a 
crying demand for men and women who know 
God, who know Jesus Christ, who know the Holy 
Spirit, who know their Bibles and how to use them 
in winning souls for Christ, as in the day in which 
you and I live. We shall follow you with our 
prayers. We expect you to do credit, both by 
your holy living and your effective service, to the 
Institute that sends you forth, but what is infi- 
nitely more important, to our God and Father and 
to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. God bless 
you. 

THE END 



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